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THE 



ELECTION 



OF 



MR. LII^C LF: 

A NAERATIVE OF THE CONTEST IN 1860 

FOR THE 

PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

, '"■ ";^\ 

BY MONS^ C. CLARIGNY. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE " REVUE DES DEUX MONDES," 



SIR WILLOUGHBY JONES, BART. 



LONDON: 

JAMES EIDaWAY, PICCADILLY, W. 

TEiJBNEE AND CO., PATEENOSTEE EOW. 



Frice One Shilling, 



PREFACE. 



The accompanying- narrative by Mons. Clarig-ny^ 
appeared in the Revue des deux Mondes, for Dec. 
1^ 1860. It contains a concise and g-raphic ac- 
count of all the varied phases of that g-reat strug'g'le 
which seems destined to result in a material in- 
crease or diminution of Negro slavery, and thereby 
to form an epoch in the social history of mankind. 
It will be seen that the author does not share the 
opinion entertained by many that the present crisis 
will be fatal to the American confederation, and 
that he anticipates for South Carolina a speedy sub- 
mission after a short and nois}^ trial of quasi-inde- 
pendence. But allowing' the soundness of his 
arg-umentS; there yet remains one element of dis- 
org-anization to which, perhaps, he has hardly g-iven 
sufficient weight, it is the reig'n of terror of white 
sans-culottcs in the Skxve States. Alread}^ the 
ominous sound ^^ forced loan " is making- itself 
heard, and symptoms show themselves which seem 
to indicate the pressure on the body politic, of those 
who have all to gain and nothing* to lose by a con- 
vulsion. The evil effect of slavery is far more 



apparent and mol'e real on the poor man than it is 
on the rich slave-owner. The latter has the occu- 
pation and interests of wealth and authority, and 
may in man}^ respects occupy the position and have 
the virtues of a sort of feudal chief. The poor man 
is born to labour, and that labour which constitutes 
his birthright he finds branded with the stamp of 
deo-radation. To work is to be a slave, to be like a 
slave. He recoils from work, and falls back on 
idleness and its concomitant misery, vice, and 
political turbulence. Thus in the Slave States the 
words " labouring- man," so expressive to our ears, 
conveying- as it does the idea of that sound-headed 
and sound -hearted class, who form the solid basis 
of our social economy, is unknown ; the white man's 
patrimony has been filched from him, to become the 
curse of his black brother. 

The one predominant overwhelming* idea of the 
lazy, worthless white pauper, who forms the scum 
of the Southern towns, is to obtain possession of a 
Neg-ro whom he may fiog" and starve, and by whose 
labour he may himself be supported. His political 
panacea is therefore the reopening- of the Slave 
Trade, or in other words, the dissolution of the 
Union, by which means alone he can ever hope to 
g-ratify his darling- wish. It is in this class that the 
onl}^ real element of dang-er to the Confederation is 
to be found. Statesmen will not fling- away the 
labours of a life by destroying that g-lorious country 
that they one day hope to govern. Landowners, 



professional men^ merchants, all the educated in- 
tellig-ent classes are prepared to stand by the Union, 
it is with the dangerous classes alone of the South 
that her central Government will ultimately have to 
deal. 

South Carolina has deserted the Union. She has 
cut the cable by which she was moored to her firm 
anchorage— the Confederation. Should she persevere 
in her secession, it would seem to be easy, by the 
light of the past, to cast her political horoscope ; to 
predict those troubles by which she is destined 

" To leave a name at which the world turns pale. 
To point a moral, or adorn a tale." 

We shall soon be told that the Jwstility of the 
North has rendered necessary the establishment of 
a Committee of public safety. Then the cry of a 
licentious multitude, uncurbed and desperate, will 
arise for blood and gold. An endeavour will be 
made to satiate the monster with Negro blood , but 
he has revelled enough in that already ;* it palls on 

* To those who would wish to know the extent of cruelty and 
wickedness towards the free Negroes and slaves into which panic 
has hurried the Legislatures of the Southern States, and espe- 
cially South Carohna, the Translator would strongly recommend 
the perusal of the article of M. EUsee Reclus, in the " Revue des 
Deux Mondes," for Dec. 15, 1860. It contains a narrative of 
thrilling interest and inconceivable iniquity, based upon authentic 
documents. At the root of the whole lies the famous, or rather 
infamous, Dred Scott decision, in which all these fountains of 
bitterness take their rise. 



his palate ; and, besides, it bring'S no g'old. It will 
then be found that the more respectable and opulent 
citizens sympatJdze with the Northern States, and 
when once this mine is opened, there will be no lack 
of rich ore to satisfy' the popular craving'. If indeed, 
in this case, we found together those two great safe- 
guards which have never j^et failed, when combined, 
in checking license and crime, Ang-lo-Saxon lineage 
and free institutions, we might have hopes for the 
young" republic. But we must remember that South 
Carolina is fettered with passports, and gagged b}^ a 
censorship, to a degree unknown in the most tyran- 
nical European despotisms. The passport system 
is not enforced by a regular, though stern, police, 
but by the inexorable fiat of Judge Lynch ', while 
the censorship does not coerce by fine and im- 
prisonment, but by the tar-barrel, the bowie- 
knife, and the cord. It was safer for a French- 
man to have professed sympathy with Louis Capet 
in 1793, than it would be now for a citizen of 
Charleston to pity a forlorn slave, or acknowledge 
his belief in the simplest truths demonstrable by 
reason, or enforced by Christianity. Reasoning by 
analogy, the spectacle in store for the world and for 
civilization is the well-known drama of anarchy and 
bloodshed ; and it is no marvel that the eyes and 
thoughts of men should be rivetted upon it. It 
remains to be seen what the effect of these antici- 
l^ations will be on the other Southern States. They 
will be attractive to the worst portion of the popu- 



lation j and the question is, have the upper classes 
power enoug'h to resist the force with which the 
multitude will endeavour to urg-e them along ? Self- 
preservation and political cowardice will make many 
converts 3 and unless all the power of the Federal 
Government, of the North, and of the central Slave 
States — deeply interested themselves in the pre- 
servation of order — is broug-ht to bear on them, they 
will probably be carried away by the current of 
secession. Should this come to pass, we may ag^ain 
by the lig-ht of the past predict the future. Foreig-n 
war will be the safety-valve employed to stave off 
massacre and confiscation at home. Cuba will be 
invaded, and all the helpless South American re- 
publics will be handed over to the murder and rapine 
of a swarm of filibusters. 

Such, in the event of a considerable secession, is 
the prospect before us ; and for a few weeks, while 
Mr. Buchanan holds the reins of power, we can 
hardly expect that the Central Government will use 
its influence to save the world from this possible 
catastrophe. The recoil of anarchy in America 
would be severely felt in these islands ; but this is 
not the place to discuss our proper attitude in the 
face of such a calamity. All we can now do is to 
join our efforts and influence to those of all that is 
g-ood and worthy in the United States ; to induce 
the Southern States that have not yet seceded to 
listen to the counsels of prudence and moderation. 

To those who would wish to obtain a clear insight 



8 

into the working- of American party, and the real 
nature of American institutions, the Essay of 
M. Clarig-ny cannot be otherwise than acceptable. 
The deep interest of the episode which he narrates, 
enables him to convey much information to the 
reader without fatig'uing- him with dryness, or boring- 
him with dog-matism. 

At the end of the work a note has been added 
containing" a short analysis of the Dred Scott case, 
with extracts from the decision of the Court. 

It would be un courteous to close these few words 
of preface without acknowledging- the kindness and 
urbanity with which the Editor of the ^^ Revue des 
Deux Mondes" at once responded to the request of 
the Translator, to be allowed to place M. Clarig'ny'& 
Essay in the hands of the English pubhc. 

Ckanmer Hall, 
Jan. 21st, 1861. 



THE 

ELECTION OF MR. LINCOLN. 



The political crisis which recurs every four years 
at the Election of a President has just passed over 
the United States. On the 6th of November were 
chosen simultaneously^ in all the States of the Union, 
the electors who, in February 1861, will^ in their 
turn, elect the President and Vice-President of the 
Eepublic. As these electors are merely deleg-ates, 
and as their vote is in consequence settled before- 
hand, the contest is virtually at an end as soon as 
they are nominated; unless, indeed, no candidate 
has succeeded in obtaining* an absolute majority of 
votes, in which case the nomination of the two first 
officers of the Executive escheats to Cong-ress. 

The summer preceding a Presidential Election is 
always a period of agitation and political effer- 
vescence ; for neither party will resign itself without 
a desperate struggle to hand over for four years 
political power and patronage to its adversaries. 
On the present occasion, the battle has been fought 
with more than usual bitterness ; and the fact that 
four candidates went to the poll, stamps this election 
as almost without precedent in American annals. 



10 

Yet this o-reat part}" contest is far from presentiiio- 
the peculiar features of interest that belong-ed to the 
election of 1850. The present state of things is in 
ftict only the result and inevitable development of a 
moral revolution which took place four years ag'o^ 
whose vast consequences and important bearing's 
on the future of the Confederation was even then 
apparent to thoughtful and far-seeing men. 

I. 

The election of 1850 will for ever be an epoch in 
the histor}' of the United States ; it marks one of 
those decisive moments which but rarely recur in 
the history of any nation. Then indeed came to 
pass an event^ foreseen and foreboded for twenty 
years by American statesmen, an event which had 
been predicted as the inevitable forerunner of the 
dissolution of the Union. In all previous elections 
universal suffrage had to decide between men, or 
rather between political systems, whose supporters 
and partizans were to be found in every portion of 
the territory of the Confederation. In 1850, for the 
first time, the Confederation divided itself into two 
distinct portions : one-half of the Kepublic gave the 
immense majorit}" of its votes to a candidate who 
had not a single vote in the other half, nay more 
whose very name was in itself a sufficient excuse 
for bringing persecution and outrage on a suspected 
supporter. South of a certain geographical line an 



11 

elector, who voted for Colonel Fremont, would have 
risked both liberty and life. The Southern States 
loudly declared, that if the candidate of the Northern 
States was elected they would secede from the 
Union ; and the Governor of Virginia, Mr. H. A. 
Wise, g-ave out, that, at the head of the MiHtia of 
his State, he would march on Washing-ton, and 
seize the Capitol and the Federal Archives. 

No doubt much of this was mere bluster, never- 
theless the quarrel of North and South seemed so 
fraug'ht with peril to the best interests of the Re- 
public, that a third party immediately started up, 
which took for its motto the integ'rit}' of the Union. 
It recruited its followers partly in the ranks of the 
Democratic, and partly in those of the Anti-Slavery 
Republican party. In the Southern States it enlisted 
all the moderate men j and all those who, being* in 
their hearts opposed to the growth of slavery, had 
no opportunity allowed them of voting- according to 
their convictions. In the North it obtained the 
support of those men of Anti-Slavery opinions who 
could not bring themselves to vote for the Demo- 
crats, and who yet were frightened at the thought 
of what might be the ulterior consequences of a 
victory of the Republican party. Notwithstanding 
this double support and the adhesion of several 
eminent citizens, the " American " or Unionist party 
only succeeded in carrying the suffrage of the single 
State of Maryland 5 and while in some of the 
Southern States it almost equalled in numbers the 



12 

Democratic party^ in the g-reater pnrt of the North- 
ern States it appeared in an insig'nificant minority. 
Its influence^ however^ on the election was very 
considerable, for by dividing- the anti-slavery votes 
in the Central States, it g'ave to the Democratic 
party the victor}^ in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
Illinois, and Indiana. It had from the first been 
clear to the Democrats, that a candidate of decidedly 
pro-slavery principles would never g-o down in a 
sing-le Northern State, and that their only chance 
of success was by opposing* a Northern Citizen to 
the Republican Candidate. Their choice fell on 
Mr. Buchanan. They claimed for him, that by 
birth, education, and interests he belonged to a Free 
State — Pennsylvania ', that the g-reater part of his 
life had been spent abroad in diplomatic pursuits ; 
that in consequence he had kept aloof from the 
contests and dissensions of home politics ; and that 
therefore none so fit as he to carry out a policy of 
concord and conciliation. The remnant of the Old 
Whig' party, broken up in 1852, and all the mode- 
rate men who had not g-iven in their adhesion to the 
Unionists, allowed themselves to be persuaded by 
these arguments, and, by giving- the Democrats the 
majority in the Central States, they at the same 
time g'ave them the preponderance in the whole 
Union. 

It was, therefore, to a pohcy of conciliation that 
Mr. Buchanan owed his election in 1856. He 
might, indeed, be said to owe it to the patriotism of 



13 

former opponents, who put aside party feeling-j in the 
hope that by so doing", they mig-ht terminate a dis- 
sension formidable in its consequences to the very 
existence of the Confederation. 

The wishes of the American people manifested 
themselves still more clearly in the elections to 
Cong-ress. If all the States that voted for Colonel 
Fremont had sent Republican representatives to 
Cong-ress, the new President would have found him- 
self face to face with a hostile legislature, and his 
g-overnment would have been paralyzed. This, how- 
ever, did not prove to be the case j the elections in 
the North Western and Central States went in 
favour of those candidates who, though opposed to 
the extension of slaver}^, Avere yet ready to g'ive 
the President a g-eneral support. Mr. Buchanan 
thus obtained a majority of 35, at least, in the 
House of Representatives, while the support of the 
Senate, formed mainly of Democrats, was assured 
to him. 

It seemed that there could be but one line of 
policy for the new President. He had only to re- 
member how his election had been broug-ht about to 
see the way clear before him. Evidently his onl}^ 
course was strict impartiality on the slavery ques- 
tion, and a soothing- and calming- policy towards the 
Northern States. Mr. Buchanan, however, thoug*ht 
he saw in his own success one more proof of the 
irresistible ascendancy of the Slave States. He had 
come into power with the idea of conquering- Cuba 



14 

or Mexico, and encircling* his presidency w ith a halo 
of g^ory ; and in the hope of obtaining- for his pet 
scheme the support of the Southern States, he de- 
termined to make use of his majority to decide in 
their favour that question — the question of Kansas 
— which, above all others, divided the North from 
the South of the Union. The Southern States in- 
sisted on introducing- slavery into that territory, 
notwithstanding- the opposition of the majority of 
the inhabitants. Mr. Buchanan g-ave them his 
strenuous and S3"stematic support, thoug'h in so doing- 
he ran the risk of lig-hting- ng-ain the hardly ex- 
tinguished embers of two civil wars ; he determined 
that Kansas should be received into the Confedera- 
tion as a Slave State. The Presidentexpected to carry 
the vote with a high hand, and he then hoped that the 
inertia of public opinion would induce it to recog*- 
nize an accomplished factj the result, however, 
disappointed his expectations; his majority fliiled 
him. The Northern Democrats who came to Con- 
gress prepared to support the President, refused to 
follow him in his pro-slavery campaig-n, for they felt 
that to do so would be to fly in the face of their 
constituents, and to close the doors of Cong-ress upon 
themselves for ever. Mr. Stephen Douglas, Senator 
for Illinois, a man of commanding- talent, and whose 
prospects of the Presidency were bound up in the 
form that the Slavery question mig-ht assume, was 
the leader of this opposition to Mr. Buchanan. It 
was he who had proposed the repeal of the Missouri 



Compromise^* and who by so doing- had, in truth, 
originated the Kansas question j his initiative in 
this matter had broug-ht him a great meed of popu- 
larity in the Southern States, and at the elections 
of 1852 and 1856 he had been the favourite candi- 
date of those States for the Presidenc}^, — and it was 
this very circumstance that had caused his name to 
be withdrawn on the present occasion wdien it was 
found to be necessary to conciliate the Free States. 
Mr. Douglas aspired to succeed Mr. Buchanan in 
the Presidency ; and his two previous disappoint- 
ments, Col. Fremont's formidable majority in the 
North, the growth of anti-slavery opinions in the 
central States, where the Democratic party could no 
longer make head against a possible coalition of 
Unionists and Republicans, had taught him the lesson 
that no candidate could succeed who had not the 
support of some of the Central in addition to that of 
the Southern States. Himself a Free-state man, 
possessing a considerable fortune, having a para- 
mount influence in his own State of IHinois, and 
many friends in Indiana and New York, why 
should not he in 1800 become the object of a com- 
promise of the same nature as that which had just 
seated Mr. Buchanan in the Presidential chair ? 
He considered that he had done enouo-h to make 
himself safe with the Southern States, his object 

* The "Missouri Compromise " was an Act passed in 1821, 
on tte occasion of Missouri being admitted into the Confedera- 
tion. It enacted that Slavery could not legally be introduced 
into any Territory north of 36° 30' of latitude. 



16 

must now be to keep on terms with the North. He 
endeavoured, therefore, to assume that mediatorial 
position whichj properly speakino-^ oug-ht to have 
belong'ed to the President. The more Mr. Bu- 
chanan, irritated at tlie opposition he encountered, 
insisted upon coercing- Kansas, the w ider the breach 
became between them. When the bill to admit 
Kansas into the Union as a slave State was broug-ht 
before Congress, Mr. Doug-las resolutely opposed it, 
and all the Northern Democrats followed him into 
opposition. He had, he said, proposed the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise to enable the inhabitants 
of the newly settled territories to decide the slavery 
question for themselves, and not for the purpose of 
allowina* them to be coerced into slave institutions 
ao-ainst their will ; the inhabitants of Kansas de- 
clined to admit slaver}', their decision oug-ht to be 
respected. The opposition of Mr. Doug-las and his 
friends threw out the bill, on which hing-ed the 
whole policy of the President, and by so doing- 
evoked in a fiercer and more bitter form the old 
antajronism of North and South. 

When the Conservatives of the Central States, 
who had voted for Mr. Buchanan, saw their champion 
resign his position of independence and neutrality, 
and assume, in its place, that of the Apostle and 
Advocate of Slavery, give up his guardianship of 
the national interests to become the head of a part}^, 
they once for all broke with his administration. 
Already the greater part of the Unionists had gone 



17 

over to the Republicans^ or had amalgamated with 
them. From this time forward all the local elec- 
tions went against the Government ; even in Penn- 
sylvania^ his native state, Mr. Buchanan saw the 
electors reject every representative who had voted 
for his measures^ and among* them his oldest and 
dearest friends. On the other hand, he endeavoured 
in vain to oppose the re-election of Mr. Douglas in 
Illinois, his adversary re-entered the Senate in 
triumph, at the close of an election which had at- 
tracted the attention of the Avhole Union. 

At the opening of the Session of 1860, Mr. 
Buchanan's majority had disappeared. The Eepub- 
licans, though still in a minority in the Senate, of 
which only a sixth part is annually re-elected, 
formed the half of the House of Representatives. 
To prevent their getting the Speakership, it became 
necessary either that the Northern Democrats 
should vote for a Southern man, or else that the 
members from the South should vote for a supporter 
of Mr. Douglas. Neither party was prepared to 
make this sacrifice of their opinions. While, there- 
fore, the Senate was debating with much violence 
upon a proposed committee on the Harper Ferry 
affair, the responsibility of which it was endeavoured 
to saddle on the Republican party, the House of 
Representatives was wasting its time in fruitless 
divisions for the Speakership. This state of things 
continued for three months, at the end of which 
time, one member went over from the Southern 

Ji 



18 

party, and by so doing* g-ave to the Republican 
Candidate the number required to form an absolute 
majority. The greater part of the Session having* 
been thus employed, Cong-ress had hardly proceeded 
to business, when it was oblig-ed to virtuall}^ pro- 
rog'ue itself, for the purpose of allowing- its members 
to take part in the preliminary meeting's of the g-reat 
presidential electoral campaig*n. And here it will 
be necessar}' to explain briefly the nature of Ame- 
rican party-organization. 

Every party in the United States has an org-ani- 
zation modelled on that of the Central Federal 
Government. In each State a central committee is 
established, which corresponds with the committees 
in each of the electoral districts, which again have 
under them committees in each localit}'. Whenever 
an election is in prospect, either for a Town-coun- 
cillor, or a member of the State Legislature, or a 
member of the House of Representatives, the 
committee, into whose attribute the vacancy 
falls, assembles, and selects the candidate for 
the part3\ When, therefore, it becomes neces- 
sary to select a candidate for the place of Go- 
vernor, Vice-Governor, Judge of the Supreme 
Court, or any other position to which the appoint- 
ment is made by a vote of the whole Union, a 
" Conventioa" is called. The committees of counties 
or districts each name the same number of delegates, 
all these delegates assemble on a certain da\^, and 
select, by the vote of the majority, the candidate of 



19 

the party. The name thus chosen is pubhshed in the 
newspapers, and the local committees call ^' ratifica- 
tion meeting's," at which all the members of the 
party are present. At these meeting's the vote of 
the Convention is announced, a pompous eulog'ium 
is passed upon the fortunate candidate, and the 
meeting" is pledg-ed to his support. In the same 
way every four years, about six months before the 
Presidential election, a General Convention assembles 
in some town fixed beforehand by the preceding- 
Convention, and thither every State despatches a 
number of delegates proportioned to the number of 
federal electors that it has the rig'ht to appoint. 
These deleg-ates arrive with their appointments in 
due form, made out by the central committee of 
their several States. The Convention adopts in 
every respect the standing- orders of the House of 
Representatives. Its first step is to appoint a com- 
mittee composed of one delegate from every State, 
whose business it is to draw up a " platform," that 
is to say, a prog-ramme of the views and intentions 
of the part}^, its rallying* cry in the coming* election. 
Afterwards the candidates for President and Vice- 
President are nominated by open voting*. It has 
been a standing- order of the Democratic Convention 
since 1844 that the successful candidate for their 
nomination must obtain the votes of two-thirds of 
their body. In every State the name selected by 
the Convention is submitted to the ratification of the 
people, on which occasion the party summons its 

B 9 



20 

most powerful speakers^ and endeavours to make 
a demonstration as imposing- and formidable as 
possible. 

All this complicated org-anization is extremely 
expensive. The candidates of every kind and their 
supporters have to subscribe to pay Convention ex- 
penses, correspondence, circulars, voting- tickets, 
handbills, not to mention salvos of artillery, 
serenades, torchlight processions, and all the other 
accessories of an American election. A far greater 
evil, however, is the absolute suppression of the 
freedom of voting. In the United States, as in 
Europe, the numerous class of busy intellig-ent men 
has but little time to give to politics, and it rarely 
happens that a man seriousl}^ occupied in business 
or literature has time to attend reg-ularly a political 
committee. These committees, particularly those of 
the lowest order, have therefore fallen into the hands 
of briefless barristers, doctors without patients, 
g-eneral agents, and all the ruck of place-hunters 
who devote themselves bod}^ and soul to a part}^ in 
the hopes of obtaining* some small situation. Such 
is the class, therefore, that nominates the dele- 
g-ates who proceed to the Convention to select 
the candidate of the party. The immense majority 
of the citizens have no option, save either not to vote 
at all, or else to vote for one of the candidates so 
nominated. Sometimes it happens in an election 
that a single ballot is to fill up a number of places 
of different sorts, in that case the elector must 



accept blindly the ten or twelve names g-iven to him ; 
the utmost he can do is to omit a name he dislikes, 
and by so doing- lose one of his votes , it would be 
hopeless to substitute the name of the most emi- 
nent citizen, for he would thus give him only a 
singie worthless vote. A subscriber to the ^ New 
York Tribune ' applied lately for its advice in the 
following- dilemma : he approved of the candidate 
selected by his party for President, but he disap- 
proved of the nomination for Vice-President, at the 
same time the federal electors, for whom alone he 
had personally a right to vote, were pledg-ed to both 
these candidates J how was he in such case to vote 
according* to his conscience? The newspaper was 
unable to solve his difficulty. 

No individual can hope for success in a strug-gie 
ag-ainst a system whose ramifications extend over 
the whole territory, and it has been often remarked 
that AVashing-ton himself, if he returned to earth, 
could not g-et himself elected villag-e sexton without 
the patronag-e of some party. A man may enjoy 
g-reat personal popularity, but that will not g'ive 
him tbroug-hout the Confederation newspapers that 
will write for him, speakers that will speak for him, 
printers and bill-stickers who will work for him, 
and, last not least, citizens who will stand as federal 
electors on purpose to vote for him. He may pos- 
sibly g-et the vote of one State or even two, De Witt 
Clinton got the vote of New York, and Daniel 
Webster of Massachusetts, but such votes were 



22 

after all but a useless tribute of esteem given by 
the State to an illustrious citizen. 

The foreofoino- considerations will have shown 
how absolute^ necessary it is to a public man to 
belong' to one of those permanent organization s, 
disposing of large funds, having at their command 
a host of subordinate agents of every kind, and 
powerful enough to raise to the Presidency men like 
Messrs. Pierce and Polk^ whose fame had hardly 
spread beyond their county, until intrigue, a happy 
accident, and the impossibility of deciding between 
rival candidates brought their names before a con- 
vention. As soon, therefore, as Mr. Douglas had 
finally broken with Mr. Buchanan, all the energies 
of the President and of the extreme section of the 
Southern men were devoted to proving that the 
senator for Illinois had deserted his party, that he 
had voluntarily separated himself from his political 
friends, and that he had no longer a right to be in- 
cluded among the Democrats. The question as to 
the soundness of Mr. Douglas's democratic prin- 
ciples led to endless discussions in the press and in 
Congress. In his defence, Mr. Douglas did not for 
a moment attempt to justif}' himself on public 
grounds, he declared that all he had done was for 
the interest of his party, that he had strictly kept 
within the programme adopted at Cincinnati in 
1 850, and that to read this programme in the light 
of the Southern States wa^ to lose the free States, 
and thus achieve the ruin of the democratic party. 



23 

If they turned him out, he said, they must also turn 
out all those men who had been the best defenders 
of the Southern cause, who had fought the hardest 
fight ag-ainst the Republicans, and to whom Mr. 
Buchanan owed his election. Let the South stand 
opposed to the unbroken phalanx of the North, 
and they would soon learn the bitter lesson of 
humiliation and defeat. To this the ultra party, 
the "fire-eaters" as they were called, Jefferson 
Davis, senator for Mississippi • Yancey, senator for 
Alabama- Slidell and Benjamin, senators for 
Louisiana, made answer, that in that case there 
would be an end of the Union, that the South was 
quite able to form a separate and independent 
Confederation, that in the meanwhile it would not 
suffer its interests to be sacrificed to the personal 
ambition of any man, and that it would not endure 
hesitation, equivocation, or treachery. At the same 
time, Mr. Doug-las was reminded of the fate of 
Mr. Yan Buren, whose attempt to divide the demo- 
cratic party and desert the cause of the South, had 
broug-ht upon himself an immediate and final ex- 
clusion from office. 

These discussions, repeated over and over ag'ain, 
had filled the early months of the session of 1860 j 
they foreshadowed the storms that would arise in 
the convention about to assemble in April to choose 
the candidate for the democratic party. On either 
side there was equal confidence and equal animosity. 
Mr. Douglas thought himself sure of the nomi- 



24 

nation. He was in the democratic party the only- 
important Northern man; no one could compare 
with him for talent, reputation, or parliamentary 
experience ', all-powerful in lUinois, and possessing" 
g'reat influence in Indiana and Michigan, he alone 
could bring' to the party a solid support ; in the 
South he saw no one who had a chance of success 
in the free States j he considered himself therefore 
to be in fact the indispensable bond of union to the 
two sections of the party. He was aware that he 
possessed the almost unanimous support of the 
Northern deleg-ates ; the ablest and most influential 
men of the South, his colleag'ues in the Senate, were 
his personal friends ; he therefore expected, not 
indeed to escape violent attacks, but that when it 
came to the vote he should have in his favour a 
majority of the convention, and that to that ma- 
jorit}" the recalcitrant ultras would be compelled to 
bow . This confidence of Mr. Douglas g-reatl}^ in- 
censed his opponents, they resented as an insult the 
tone in which his newspapers announced his certain 
triumph, and promised forgiveness to those who 
after the contest might seek his pardon. In conse- 
quence they spared no pains to obtain from the 
committees of their several States the nomination 
of delegates pledged against Mr. Douglas, and b}'' 
the support of the Federal administration the}^ suc- 
ceeded. The President himself, his character na- 
turally obstinate and violent, untamed by age, his 
heart overflowing with bitterness at the recollection 



25 

of his defeats^ entered with all his soul into this plot 
ag-ainst the man whom he considered to be his evil 
g-enius. The g*overnment officers of ever}^ kind, 
whether emplo3^ed in the revenue, post-office^ or any 
other department, received notice, under pain of 
dismissal, that the}'" must support the section of the 
party opposed to Mr. Doug-las. 

The Democratic convention assembled at Charleston 
in South Carolina, on the 23rd of April, 1860. The 
deleg-ates from the North- West arrived unanimously 
pledged to support Mr. Doug-las, and to stick to him 
to the last ; of those from the North-East, the ma- 
jority were in his favour, the only exceptions being" 
a limited number of g-overnment officials. The 
deleg-ates from Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Flo- 
rida, and Alabama, led by the Senators Slidell and 
Yancey, declared war to the knife ag-ainst his pre- 
tensions, and in this they were backed up by South 
CaroHna and Georg-ia. The central States, Mis- 
souri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Maryland were a 
g-ood deal divided. At Charleston itself a strong" 
feeling" of irritation prevailed ag-ainst the North, 
and a considerable pressure was put upon the con- 
vention by the populace of the town, reinforced by 
the crowd of Southern visitors that throng-ed its 
streets. 

Mr. Douglases friends wished to come to a vote as 
soon as possible. They calculated upon the moral 
effect of a larg-e number of supporters at the first 
round; they expected that two other candidates 



26 

would be started, a moderate man by the central 
States and an ultra by the Southern, that after two 
or three rounds the friends of the former would see 
that their case was hopeless and would transfer 
their votes to Mr. Douglas, and that by this means 
he would obtain the requisite majorit}^ of two-thirds ; 
as to the bare majority they never doubted that 
they should get it at the very first vote. The 
ultras, however, were by no means equally anxious 
to display their numerical inferiority. They de- 
clared that they had no candidate either for the 
Presidency or Vice-Presidency, that they did not 
seek to nominate any one for either of these offices, 
but that they were determined to have real guaran- 
tees for the interests of the Southern States. A 
compromise had been forced upon them in 1856, 
which they were told was to work wonders for 
them, and yet every political question had been de- 
cided against them. They said they would not be 
made fools of again ; let the North select for their 
candidate a Southern man, and they pledged them- 
selves to accept him be he who he might, with the 
programme of '56, or even without any programme 
at all; but in default of a candidate whose name 
spoke for itself, they insisted upon a clear and un- 
mistakeable programme, one that would calm every 
apprehension and remedy every grievance of the 
slaveholders. Mr. Douglas's friends could not pos- 
sibly agree to a proposal especially aimed against 
their candidate ; the ultras then proposed, and sue- 



27 

ceeded in carrying*, a resolution that before pro- 
ceeding* to a vote the convention should, according 
to precedent, draw up the usual prog'ramme. 

Havings succeeded thus far, the next step of Mr. 
Douglas's opponents was to endeavour to draw up 
a progTamme that that g'entleman could not possibly 
accept. The Southern deleg-ates instructed their 
representatives in the Platform Committee to take 
for their point of departure the resolutions that had 
been laid before the Senate of the United States 
by Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Misvsissippi, and which 
affirmed it to be a duty incumbent on Cong-ress to 
protect slavery in the Territories. It was impossible 
to take a line more directly adverse to Mr. Douglas. 
When, in fact, he had proposed the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, he had done it upon the 
ground that Congress had no more right to forbid 
than it had to impose slavery upon the newly settled 
Territories, and that any step it might take in favour 
of either party would be an interference with the 
right of the colonists to decide for themselves. 
When on former occasions he had been accused in 
the Northern States of being a partizan of slavery, 
Mr. Douglas had always distinctly denied the 
charge. It had been his wish, he had stated, to 
leave such questions, which indeed were no concern 
of Congress, to be settled by nature and by the will 
of the population. Wherever slave labour was 
more profitable than free labour, self-interest stronger 
than Congress would employ it j wherever, on the 



28 

other hand, the converse was true, it was useless to 
try to force in slavery by legislative enactment. 
Why then not allow the question to be settled by 
the simple rules of political economy, by which, do 
what they might, it would be decided at last ? For 
his own part, he added, in all that he had done, he 
had had but one object in view, to put a stop to 
irritating' debates b}'^ forbidding- Cong-ress to inter- 
fere in a matter in which it was powerless for g'ood, 
and where all interference was a violation of the 
rig'ht of the citizens to g-overn themselves. This 
simple solution, which promised to put an end to the 
everlasting' bickering-s of the pro and anti-slaver}^ 
parties, was immense^ popular among- the Conser- 
vative population of the Central and Western States, 
and though much carped at by the Republicans, who 
nick-named it the principle of Squatter Sovereignty, 
it proved a tower of strength to Mr. Douglas in the 
Valle}' of the Mississippi in 18.5G, when, after with- 
drawing from the contest himself, he promoted by 
ever}^ means in his power the cause of Mr. Buchanan, 
supposing' that he was thereby fighting his own 
battle for 1860. 

There is no convincing angr}- men ; the wisest of 
the Southern party would willing^ have accepted 
Mr. Douglas's solution as perfectl}^ satisfactory. It 
insured them against anj- endeavour to forbid sla- 
very in the provinces they might some da}'^ conquer 
or annex from Mexico. The ultras, however, 
pointed out a danger in this doctrnie of squatter 



29 

sovereig'nty ; it permitted, indeed, the inhabitants of 
the Territories to introduce slavery, if such was their 
pleasure, but on the other hand it enabled them to 
forbid it if they liked, and that was a stretch of 
authority these g-entlemen could never allow. If Con- 
gress, they arg'ued, has not the rig'ht to forbid slavery 
how can the provisional g-overnments, established by 
its authority in the Territories, its own creatures, have 
a power which it does not itself possess j slavery, 
therefore, cannot be forbidden in the Territories, and 
hence it exists in all of them by rig-ht. When one 
of these infant communities has arrived at ag'e of 
discretion, and thereby has acquired the rig-ht to 
enter the Confederation as an independent State, she 
can, in the plenitude of her power, permit or abolish 
slavery, but until that solemn coming- of ag-e, she 
has no power to reject slavery from her soil. If, 
then, one of these infant States ventures to interfere 
with the property of the slave-owners it is the ne- 
cessary duty of Cong-ress to compel her to acknow- 
ledge their rig-hts. The judgment pronounced by 
the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott Case was 
quoted in support of this view. In this judgment it 
was laid down that no difference existed between a 
slave and any other property, and further that all 
citizens had a right to convey themselves and their 
property to any part of the United States, and to 
obtain for such property the protection of the laws. 
The resolutions before mentioned of Mr. Jefferson 
Davis, which had been occupying the time of the 



30 

Senate, to the exclusion of public business for two 
months, had this object in view, that the Senate 
should resolve that it was the dut}- of Congress 
without delay to vote the necessary laws for the 
protection of slavery in the Territories. 

It is easy to see how far an arg-ument of this 
kind can be carried 5 the republican party, in their 
opposition to Mr. Douglas, did not fail to push it to 
its extreme consequences, and then hold them up 
as the result of denying- the power of Cong-ress. 
The}^ arg'ued that logic was altog-ether on the side 
of Jefferson Davis ; that if Congress had not the 
power to legislate against slaver}^ that institution 
was legal wherever the American Constitution ex- 
tended, that freedom was the exception and slavery 
the rule, inasmuch as the former could only exist by 
virtue of a special act and declared will of the people. 
And in any case the will of the people was subjected 
to considerable restrictions. A Northern citizen could 
certainly take his goods and chattels to the South, 
and when there either keep them or sell thera as he 
thought best. Did it not therefore follow, in ac- 
cordance with the law as laid down by the Supreme 
Court, that a Southern planter had a right to come 
to New York or Boston Avith his bevy of slaves, and 
either use them for his domestic purposes, or if he 
preferred it put them up for sale. Thus in vain had 
the Free States made it illegal for their citizens to 
possess slaves, they had not by so doing enfranchized 
their territory. A Southern man might still, if he 



31 

liked, inflict upon them the sig-ht of slavery, and of 
its hideous concomitant the sale of human beino-s. 
That this was not an impossible case was proved by 
a cause pending- at the time before the Supreme 
Court. A Yirg'inian named Lemmon, on his way 
to Texas with two slaves, had arrived at New York 
to take the steamer to New Orleans. His slaves 
had been taken from him by virtue of the laws of 
New York, which forbid slavery within the limits of 
the State ; they had been declared free by a decree 
of the Court of New York, confirmed on appeal by 
the Supreme Court at Albany. A subscription had 
been opened among- the New York merchants, who 
w^ished to hush up this unpleasant business, and 
Lemmon had been compensated for his loss : but at 
this point the State of Yirg-inia had interfered, and 
had appealed to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, on the g-round that the Courts of New York 
had no jurisdiction over a Yirg-inian citizen. With 
the well-known leaning- of the Supreme Court, in 
which sat a majority of Democrats, there could be 
no doubt how the decision would g'o. Such then 
was the pass to which Mr. Doug-las had broug-ht 
them by limiting- the power and authority of Con- 
g-ress. Beginning- with the attempt to allow the 
inhabitants of the Territories to decide for themselves 
between slavery and freedom, they had, step by step, 
arrived at the log-ical conclusion that slave-owners 
mig-ht force their institution even on Sovereign 
States who desired to be free. 



Nothing- could be more proper than such a pros- 
pect to foster the gTowing anti-slavery feeling" of the 
North. To insert Mr. Jefferson Davis's resolutions, 
or even the substance of them in the programme of 
the Democratic part}^, would be to deprive the can- 
didate of that part}^, who must accept their pro- 
g-ramme, of every vote without the limits of the Slave 
States. Mr. Douglas himself could not give his 
adhesion without repudiating* every act and word of 
the last six years, and ruining- for ever his influence, 
even m his own state of Illinois. Now this was 
exactly what his opponents wanted ; they wished to 
place him in the dilemma, of either withdrawing, or 
else eating- his own words. Mr. Slidell from Wash- 
ing'ton sent to the delegate of Louisiana a series of 
resolutions of the most irritating- kind, while, on the 
other hand, Mr. Douglas desired his friends to 
stick to the programme of 1856, or, at all events, 
not to give way beyond a simple adhesion to the 
terms of the Dred Scott decision. It seemed likel}^ 
that the Platform Committee would never be able to 
a£»Tee to any statement of principles j the fifteen 
delegates from the Slave States all voted together, 
while the Northern delegates tried to conciliate by 
proposing- three or four forms, all drawn up with the 
view of satisfying- the South, and at the same time 
shirking- an absolute adhesion to the black code. 
At last Mr. Avery, of North Carolina, substituted a 
milder version for Mr. Slidell's irritating- formula, 
which was carried by 17 to 10, in consequence of 



33 

the deleo'ates of Ores'on and California votins: with 
the Southj on the understanding- that General Lane, 
senator for Oreg'on^ should be the candidate for the 
Vice-Presidency. 

In laying- the report of the majority of the Com- 
mittee before the ConventioUj Mr. Avery spoke out 
strono'ly and resolutel3\ He said, the time for half 
measures and shilly-shallying- was past, that the 
South had carried concession to the utmost limit, 
and that from the present she must have full and 
complete satisfaction • that the doctrine of squatter- 
sovereignty was a more dangerous, because less 
open, attack thaji the Wilmot proviso.* Mr. Payne, 
in the name of the minority of the committee, de- 
fended that doctrine, saying- that it was a principle 
dear to the North and one that it would not abandon. 
If the Democratic party chose to repudiate it, that 
party must make up its mind to extinction, as it 
could no longer count upon the vote of a single free 
State. These speeches, delivered with perfect calm- 
ness and self-command on either side, evidenced a 
degTee of rooted antag-onism between the two sec- 
tions that g-reatly impressed the meeting-. Mr. King*, 
formerly Governor of Missouri, then rose^ in the 
hope of stilling- the coming- storm. He pronounced 

* During the last war against Mexico, Mr. Wilmot and other 
free-soilers introduced into all the measures passed, either for con- 
tinuing the war or defining terms of peace, a clause or proviso 
that slavery could never be introduced into any province that 
might be ceded by Mexico. 

C 



84 

himself ^g-ainst the prolamine of the majority : he 
said that it would not. indeed, lose them the vote of 
Missourij but that it must inevitably deprive them 
of everv Free State vote, and by so doin^ extingnish 
the part v. This brought up Mr. Yancey, the leader of 
the ultras, and the cheers that greeted him from the 
<rallerie5 showed on which side was the popular feel- 
ins* in the South, he protested, he said^ at what had 
fallen from the representative of a Slave State, and 
especially of a State the most exposed to the plots 
of the abolitionists. Energy and resolution were 
henceforward the only means of safety for the 
South. Was it possible, that after the lesson of 
1856, with its sequence of humiliation and defeat, 
anv one could recommend them to fall back on the 
old policy of trimming and expediency ? Ko, better 
a hundred times for the South to fall, proclaiming 
her principles and demanding her rights, than for 
her to buy an inglorious and useless victory by the 
sacrifice of those rights and principles. If the 
Southern men were capable of such weakness, if for 
the empty glorification of electing their own candi- 
date the}' chose to be the humble servants of a party 
of intriguers, and the wilhng tools of unprincipled 
ambition, they deserved to be hung- on a jribbet 
hio^her than that of Haman. This insultino- and 
irritating speech produced a warm reply from Mr. 
Pugh, senator for Ohio, an intimate friend of Mr. 
Douglas. Retracing events for a few years, Mr, 
Pugh proved, by unanswerable quotations, that 



35 

Y.'ithin that period every important Southern States- 
man^ including- Mr. Yancey himself, had eag-erly 
supported the doctrines they now attacked, and had 
stigmatized as inadmissible, senseless, and unconsti- 
tutional, the claims that now they advocated. It 
was with their own words and their own arg'uments 
that he opposed their impudent and unjustifiable 
pretensions. 

Thus ever}' speech in the debate ag'g-ravated the 
quarrel, and when Mr. Big-ler, of Pennsylvania, 
proposed a third form, and moved that it be referred 
to the committee, he succeeded in carrying- his mo- 
tion. This attempt to stave olF, if not to prevent, a 
breach that all felt to be imminent, also failed. The 
committee could not come to an understanding-, 
and returned with two reading's almost iden- 
tical with those that they had before presented. 
The question was put to the vote in a storm of 
confusion. The result was that the programme 
of the majorit}', that is the prog-ramme of the 
Slave States was rejected by the Charleston con- 
vention by lOo ag-ainst 138. The programme 
of the Free States was then put to the meeting and 
carried article by article, the greater number of the 
Southern delegates declining to vote. When the 
final question, that the programme be adopted, was 
about to be put to the vote, Mr. AValker, delegate 
from Alabama, addressed the meeting. Having* 
read a written protest against the decision of the 
majority, he said, that in obedience to his instruc- 

c2 



36 

tions, he and all the other delegates from Alabama, 
retired from the Convention. Similar declarations 
were made, amidst profound silence, by the delegates 
of Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, 
Texas, and Arkansas ; the deleg-ates of Yirg-inia, 
Georg-ia, and Kentucky required time to consult on 
the proper course to adopt, and the meeting- ad- 
journed. When the Convention next assembled 
for business, the delegates of the seven seceding 
States absented themselves, and it was determined to 
select a candidate for the Presidency at once ; the 
first vote gave no result, nor did any of the follow- 
inof votes, for Mr. Douo-las, who from the first, had 
the bare majority, could never get beyond it, much 
less obtain the suffrao*es of two-thirds of the meet- 
ing. After, therefore, fifty-seven useless divisions, 
an adjournment was carried by 166 to 88 ; the Con- 
vention decided to re-assemble on the 18th of June, 
and that the place of assembly should this time be 
Baltimore. 

The abortive result of the Charleston Democratic 
Convention produced a profound sensation through- 
out the Union. The Republicans hailed it as a 
pledge of the success of their candidate, and as a 
proof of the spread of their opinions. This great 
Democratic party, so proud of its universality, had 
then at last come to cut itself in half according to 
a geographical line of demarcation ! It had become 
divided on this very question of slavery which it 
boasted to exclude from politics altogether. After 



37 

having" so often reproached the Republicans with 
keeping" alive irritating- debates unnecessarity and 
from merely factious motives, it was itself a prey to 
this very agitation which it had stig-matized as gra- 
tuitous ; and after havino;- been the willino- tool of 
the passions, the pretensions, and the terrors of the 
South, it had ended by breaking* asunder bonds too 
g-alling- to be any long-er endured. Would not this 
prove to the nervous Conservatives of the North, 
who in 1856 had deserted their opinions and given 
victory to the Democrats, how mistaken they were ? 
Would not this convince them that there was no 
limit to the demands of the South, and that nothing- 
short of the sacrifice of the constitution itself could 
ever satisfy her ? Thank God, the men of the 
North beg-an to see their way clearh', and returnino* 
to the wholesome doctrines of the founders of the 
republic, they would now rally round the standard 
of freedom. 

The exultation of the Republicans naturally occa- 
sioned a corresponding' depression on the part of their 
opponents. Every one noticed the line adopted by 
the Constitution, of Washing-ton, the especial org-an 
of Mr. Buchanan. This paper would onl3' see in what 
had happened a defeat of Mr. Doug-las, upon which 
it dwelt with considerable complacency. What- 
ever people may think, said that paper, of what 
has happened at Charleston, one thing- is clear 
and undeniable, that is, that the squatter sovereig-nty 
candidate has completely failed, and that his sup- 



38 

porters have no resource but to find another candi- 
date who may be acceptable to the Democratic 
States. Any one who takes the trouble to inquire 
will be soon satisfied that Mr. Doug-las has no means 
of getting- over the opposition to himself on the part 
of the Democratic party in States which will cer- 
tainly^ vote for a Democrat at the coming- election . 
Any endeavour to contest this patent fact can only 
end in his political annihilation. This article of the 
" Constitution" was at once answered by the " Cin- 
cinnati Enquirer/' one of the principal Democratic 
journals in the North ; they arg-ued that the defeat 
was for those who had endeavoured to chang-e the 
nature of the party creed^ and who had not been able 
to accomplish their wishes either by intrigue or by 
force. They had proved to a certainty that the 
part}' would never allow to be introduced into its 
proiz'ramme that miserable heresy, that the citizens 
of a Territory had no right to exclude slavery, if such 
was their desire^ and that it is the duty of Cong-ress 
to force it upon them by a special law. "As to Mr. 
Doug-las," continued the " Enquirer," " the candi- 
date and favourite of the people, althoug-h he had 
to contend against the open and combined opposi- 
tion of all the other pretenders to the Presidency, of 
the Central Government, and of the Southern Sepa- 
ratists, he yet obtained in more than fifty divisions 
three-fifths of all the votes g-iven. He had obtained 
152 votes, while all the other candidates put tog-e- 
ther did not poll 100 j he had an actual majority of 



39 

the Convention, even if all the States had been pre- 
sent, and had voted. His nomination had only been 
prevented by adopting* a rule which required two- 
thirds of the votes to constitute a due election. If 
the streno-th and mao-nitude of the forces combined 
ag'ainst him be taken into consideration, it is assur- 
edly one of the most remarkable personal triumphs 
on record. If the politicians who sat in the Con- 
vention had really represented the will of the people, 
Mr. Doug-las would have been unanimously nomi- 
nated at the first vote. It would seem to be impos- 
sible that the Convention, when it meets at Balti- 
more, can ig-nore such a liict, or mistake its mean- 
ing." 

Such was also the opinion of the " Bang-or Union" 
and the " Albany Argus," two influential papers, 
one of the State of Maine, the other of New York ; 
they thought the adjournment would serve Mr. 
Doug"las. They considered that reflection would 
show the Southern men that they had g'one too far, 
that by breaking* up the Democratic party they onW 
handed over the victory to their enemies the Eepub- 
licans, and tied their own hands. In fact all the 
Northern Democratic journals protested that conces- 
sion had reached its limits, and that non-intervention 
must remain the fundamental principle of their 
party. " To abandon that principle," said the '^ Buf- 
falo Courier," " would be worse than suicide ; it 
would be the heig-ht of cowardice, meanness, and 
ignominy." 



40 

The Southern papers, however, showed no sig-ns of 
repentance. " The Charleston Mercury" ncknowledo-ed 
that thoug'h Mr. Doug-las could not himself be no- 
minated at the next nieetino- of the Democratic Con- 
vention, yet he certainly had the power of preventing- 
the nomination of any one else, inasmuch as he pos- 
sessed half the votes. Everything- therefore pointed 
to the conclusion that the Baltimore Convention 
would have the same result as that at Charleston. 
Tlie " Mercury" was g'ratified at the prospect. It 
was far better, in their opinion, to have to do with 
an open enemy than with an enemy disg'uised under 
the semblance of friendship. A unanimous nomina- 
tion could only take place b}^ both parties consent- 
ing- to contaminate themselves with equivocation and 
folsehood ; it Avas unworthy of the South to take any 
part in this wretched farce. She must have her 
rig-hts acknowledg'ed, and break with any party that 
would not acknowledge them openly. The " Chroni- 
cle" of Aug-usta, in Georgia, declared the rig"hts of 
the South to be incompatible with the squatter sove- 
reig'uty espoused by the Northern Democrats, and 
that those rights could not be abandoned ; while the 
" Mississip})ian" of Jackson loudly applauded the 
conduct of the deleg-ates at Charleston, and declared 
that to have submitted to a sectional majority of the 
Convention would have been the death-blow to 
Democracy in the Southern States. 

Thus in the press the battle was foug'ht with the 
same vig'our and animosity as in the Convention ; it 



41 

soon also made its entry into tlie Senate. Mr. 
Jefferson Davis^ in a motion having- reference to his 
resolutions, made a violent personal attack on Mr. 
Doug-las. Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, de- 
fended him, urg-ing- the Democratic party not to 
divide itself if it wished to preserve a chance of 
success ; Mr. Benjamin, of Louisiana, followed, pro- 
testing- ag-ainst the sacrifice of principle to electoral 
success, or to the personal ambition of any indi- 
vidual j give me, said he, a programme that insures 
my rig-hts and satisfies my fellow citizens, and then- 
select an}^ candidate you please who can honourably 
adopt it ; the man you select shall be my candidate, 
I will canvass my State for him, I will devote to his 
service my time and my streng'th, I will speak for 
him whenever and wherever his friends may call on 
me to do so, nothing- shall stop me ; but I confess I 
have no heart to fig-ht when I am to choose as my 
champion either a man who fairly and openly denies 
my rig-hts, or one who acknowledg-es them indeed 
but wishes to cheat me out of them. I will endure 
neither the one nor the other. Mr. Benjamin made 
no secret of his hope that when the Northern Demo- 
crats knew all the truth they would not hesitate to 
form an alliance with the South, by the sacrifice of 
Mr. Doug-las. He then narrated, at considerable 
leng-th, a circumstance up to that time kept secret. 
It was that the dissension of the two sections of the 
party dated from the time when by their joint action 
they had carried the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 



42 

niise. In 1856^ they nearly failed in coming to an 
understanding- on a proo-ramme ; a ru})ture had been 
prevented b}' adopting' an ambig-uous formula which 
admitted, and had received, different interpretations 
in the North and in the South 5 with the understand- 
ing*, however, that a judgment of the Supreme Court 
should be obtained which should bind the whole 
party. That judg-ment had been obtained in the 
Dred Scott case, and therefore there could no long-er 
be any question about squatter sovereig-uty. This 
curious revelation explained why the South would 
not accept the Cincinnati prog-ramme without adding- 
a rider to it, and it also gave a key to those re- 
proaches of treachery and bad faith which the South 
showered on Mr. Douglas, and which Mr. Benjamin 
did not spare him. Mr. Douglas, of course, seized 
the opportunity of answering- all the attacks that 
had been made upon him. He spoke last j he went 
fully into the history of the Democratic party, show- 
ino- that the South had not always been so exacting-^ 
but that every victory gained for her by the Northern 
Democrats had been made the starting point for new 
pretensions. Reverting to the contests of 1850, he 
showed that he alone had stood up for the South 
against Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, and that at 
that period the South strove in vain for the principle 
they now so utterly repudiated, the non-intervention 
of Cono-ress in the Territories. It was not himself, 
or the Northern Democrats, that had changed their 
principles, it was the South who now combated w^hat 



43 

tliey had so long- desired ; in vain did Mr. Davis, 
and his friends, try to contradict these facts, a series 
of unanswerable quotations silenced them. The in- 
consistency of his opponents was lashed by Mr. 
Douglas with polished sarcasm and afforded him an 
oratorical triumph ; but there his advantag'e ended^ 
for the wounds he had g-iven were not easily healed^ 
and his speech had rendered irremediable a quarrel 
as fatal to himself as it was to his opponents. 

III. 

While the Senate was absorbed in these fiery 
debates, a Unionist Convention assembled at Balti- 
more and completed its labours in two days. This 
via-media party, which had voted for Mr. Millard 
Filmore in 1856, had been torpid for three years. 
Its only remains of vitality were to be found in the 
Southern States, where it served as a rallying* point 
to all who declined to support the extreme views 
of Mr. Buchanan. The general emotion caused 
throughout the Union by the John Brown invasion 
had appeared, however, to give it some renewal of 
life in the North. Great meetings had been held at 
Boston, New York and Philadelphia, to protest 
against the violent attack that had been made upon 
a Southern State, and to proclaim the principle of 
obedience to the laws and constitution. Men of in- 
fluence had taken the initiative in these demonstra- 
tions, and Statesmen who in former days had held 
the highest places in the Northern States, and who 



44 

wero supposed to have retired from politicnl life, re- 
appeared upon the scene. It looked almost like a 
resurrection of the old Whi^- party, and the earnest- 
ness with which the commercial classes, so closely 
identified with the South, went into the movement, 
deceived man}' as to its importance and probable 
duration. It was resolved to re-organize at once the 
Unionist party, and hopes were entertained that it 
mig'ht have a powerful influence on the approaching* 
Presidential campaign. It Avas the Convention of 
this revived party that met at Baltimore on the 9th 
of May, under the presidency of Mr. W. Hunt, 
formerly Governor of the State of New York. This 
meeting, if judged b}' the social position, the cha- 
racter and antecedents of its members, formed a far 
more important gathering than that which had just 
broken up at Charleston, or indeed, any meeting of 
the kind that had ever assembled in the United 
States ; but it had the misfortune to represent no 
policy, to have no definite idea, and its members, 
though individually most highly respected, had been 
too long removed from the turmoil of political life 
to exercise any real influence on the masses of the 
population. It was an army of Generals, while the 
crisis called for millions of soldiers ! Doubtless no 
parallel can be drawn between Mr. Hunt who re- 
presented New York at Baltimore, and Captain 
Bynders the delegate of the same town at Charles- 
ton. The former by birth, education, intellect and 
fortune, belonged to the first class of American 



45 

societ}^ He had obtained all the honours that 
Universal SiifFrag'e can confer ; successively mem- 
ber of the New York Legislature, member of Con- 
g-ress, and Governor of his State, he had in every 
position acquired the reputation of an honourable 
and able man. On the other hand the latter, abso- 
lutely uneducated, but gifted with a stentorian 
voice, and making- up for his ignorance by coarse 
and ready wit, was a stump orator long in the pay 
of the Democratic party. Made a lieutenant of 
police as a reward for his political services, he was 
strongly suspected of taking bribes from the crimi- 
nals who ought to have come under his clutches* 
This man, however, frequenting the water-side 
taverns, knowing by name all the newspaper 
hawkers, bill-stickers, all the paid cheerers and 
getters up of manifestations, was himself a power, 
and did not over-rate his influence when he said he 
had 10,000 votes in his waistcoat pocket. There 
was the weak point of the party of " old gentle- 
men " and ^' silvery heads " as they were nicknamed 
by both sides ; excellent well intentioned men, they 
tried to make up a party by drawing-room gossip, 
a few speeches, and a few newspaper articles, while 
they possessed no means of acting upon the masses 
of their countrymen. 

The Unionists could not even fall back upon one 
of those appeals which tell upon the imagination, 
and are a substitute for argument. It was impos- 
sible for them to draw up a programme without 



40 

leanino; to one or other of the two g-reat parties, out 
of which they wanted to enhst their adherents. It 
required, therefore, very little debate to induce the 
Convention at Baltimore to decide tliat they would 
put out no prog-ramme ; in its stead they issued a 
party cry, " The Union, the constitution, and obe- 
dience to the laws, for ever !" It certainly was an 
ing-enious way of g'etting* out of the difficult}' of 
deciding- betw^een North and South ; but unluckily 
all sides could appro])riate this party watchword, 
Democrats and llepublicans, both sides professed 
themselves to be devoted to the Union, the constitu- 
tion, and obedience to the laws ; only they differed 
about the meanino; of the word "Constitution," and 
each party hoped to make use of " obedience to the 
laws,'' to accomplish their own ends. With this 
vaofue formula the Unionists were certain to offend 
nobody, but they also ran the risk of g-aining* no 
adherents. 

The Unionist Convention selected as its candidate 
Mr. John Bell, an old pupil of Henry Clay, and for 
many years member of Cong'ress for Tennessee. Born 
at Nashville, in 1797, Mr. Bell adopted the bar as 
his profession, and devoting* himself earl}' in life to 
politics, at the ag-e of twenty had a seat in the legis- 
lature of the State. In 18C7, he was elected 
member of Congress for Tennessee, he sat for four- 
teen consecutive years, and ultimately became 
Speaker. Like Henry Clay, he beg-an as a demo- 
crat, joined the Whig- party on the question of the 



47 

Federal Bank, and stuck to them ever after. It 
was as a Whig* that he became War Minister, 
under the short administration of President Harri- 
son. He afterwards represented Tennessee, in the 
Senate, until March, 1859. Thoug-h citizen of a 
slave state, and himself a slave owner, Mr. Bell had 
always been conspicuous for the liberality and 
moderation of his views. While member of Con- 
g-ress, he had on two memorable occasions voted 
that petitions ag'ainst slavery oug-ht to be received 
by the House, not that he approved of the petitions, 
]but because he thought the attempt on the part of 
the slave party to induce the House to reject them 
was an unconstitutional interference with public 
rig-hts. As a supporter and defender of the Com- 
promise of 1850,* he had voted against the Kansas 
Bill, the ^^ fons et origo mali" of the present crisis, 
and his sturdy opposition to Mr. Buchanan had 
cost him his seat in the Senate. If Mr. Bell's 
political friends may have been able to lay to his 
charge some moments of vacillation, and some slight 
political inconsistencies, easily explained in a man 
who was voting" almost invariably ao-ainst the 
opinions of a majority of his fellow-citizens, no one 
ever for a moment suspected him either of interested 
views or of being biassed by private ambition. All 
parties alike acknowledged his talent, his high cha- 

* This Compromise, suggested by Mr. Clay, was to regulate 
the affairs of the Provinces detached from Mexico, and thereby 
put an end to the agitation against the Wilmot proviso. 



48 

racter, his inteo-rity, and his patriotism. As ashive- 
owner, Mr. Bell could not be suspected by the 
South, while the North was sure to hail with en- 
thusiasm a man who on several occasions had g'iven 
his vote in favour of liberty, and who had sacrificed 
his position in public life at the shrine of his poli- 
tical convictions. Besides this Mr. Bell had stood 
by the economical principles of the Whig- party, he 
was a decided protectionist, and as such acceptable 
to the manufacturing- interests of Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, and Indiana, States w^hose votes had decided 
the election of 1850, and who seemed destined to 
exercise the same influence on that of 18G0. 

For theVice-Presidency the choice of the Conven- 
tion fell upon a Northern man, Mr. Edward Everett, 
whose reputation in literature and in politics has 
crossed the Atlantic. Member of Cong-ress from 
1824 to 1834, Governor of Massachusetts during^ 
four years. Ambassador in London from 1841 to 
1845, afterwards President of Harvard University, 
Mr. Webster's successor as Foreig-u Minister and 
Senator, Mr. Everett had in turn filled with credit 
all the high positions of his country. In 1853 he 
retired from politics, with the intention of devoting- 
himself to literature. The John Brown invasion 
recalled him from his retirement. During- all the 
winter of 1859 he took an active part in the Unionist 
demonstrations, and his character for eloquence shed 
considerable cclut on their proceeding's. Whether 
in consequence of his age and the important public 



49 

positions he had filled, Mr. Everett expected to be 
selected for the Presidency, or whether success ap- 
peared to him to be hopeless, or whether he doubted 
his own popularity in the face of an electoral con- 
test, must remain a question ; but certain it is that 
he hesitated long- in g'ivin^ his consent to become 
candidate for the Yice-Presidency, and that he onh^ 
yielded at last to the repeated solicitations of his 
friends. 

The Baltimore convention had chosen wisely. 
Never had men been broug-ht forward more worthy 
to fill the two highest offices of the State j and the 
cordial reception given by the upper classes to the 
names of Bell and Everett may for a moment have 
deluded the Unionist party with visions of success. 
They did not indeed hope or expect that their cham- 
pions Avould be elected b}^ popular vote, but thes^ 
fancied themselves able to prevent the election of 
any other candidates. The Southern States, even 
if unanimous, were unable of themselves to form a 
majority ; now the Unionists counted on Mar^dand 
which, in 1856, had voted for Fillmore, on Tennessee 
because a candidate was always sure of his native 
state, on Kentucky because it always voted with 
Tennessee ; besides this they had hopes of Louisiana 
and South Carolina, in both of which States Fillmore 
had obtained a considerable number of votes, and 
where a split in the Democratic party mig'ht g-ive 
them the majority. If three Slave States, and a 
fortiori five, voted for Bell, the Southern candidate, 



50 

be he who he mig'ht, could not obtain the majo- 
rity. As for the Eepubhcan candidate they ac- 
knowledg-ed the impossibihty of wresting- from him 
any of the New Eng-land States; but even sup- 
posing- he had in his favour the fourteen States that 
had voted for Colonel Fremont including New York, 
those fourteen States would only g-ive him 114 
votes ; and to obtain 152, which constitutes the bare 
majorit3',he must have in addition Pennsylvania with 
its 27 votes, and besides either Indiana or Illinois. 
The Unionists flattered themselves that Mr. Everett 
would give them Massachusetts ; and they reckoned, 
as in 1850, to get votes enough in Indiana and 
Pennsylvania to prevent the Republican candidate 
from carrying- it in either of those States. Thus in 
default of any candidate g-etting- an absolute majority 
the nomination would fall to Congress, and there the 
two parties were so evenly balanced, that the chance 
Avas altos'ether in favour of a via-7nedia candidate. 

There was a savour of probability about all these 
calculations that could not escape the Republican 
party, they exercised, therefore, considerable influ- 
ence upon the decisions of the Republican convention, 
which assembled at Chicago eight days after the 
Unionist convention at Baltimore. The g-eneral 
expectation was that Mr. Seward would be the can- 
didate, and on many gTounds a better selection 
could not have been made. Mi*. Seward was \Aith- 
out doubt the first man of the Republican party. 
Senator for the State of New York, of w hicli he 



51 

had formerly been Governor ; he stood pre-eminent 
among" the speakers in Congress. His clear and 
philosophic turn of mind enabled him to trace out 
with irresistible power the consequences that flowed 
from any principle, and his lang-uag-e, g-rave, firm, 
and convincing', and free from personality, influenced 
even those whom it did not persuade. His hig-h 
character, the purity of his public and private life, 
his earnestness and sincerity, had won for him the 
esteem both of friends and enemies. He mig'ht 
almost be said to embody in himself the Eepublican 
party. For years he had stood almost alone in the 
Senate, fighting* the battle of freedom ag'ainst a 
majority' of slaveholders, and never for a moment 
had he flinched from the contest. Constantly as- 
sailed with the most violent and bitter personal 
attacks, branded as a traitor, burnt in effigy, and 
threatened with death b}' the Southern men, he had 
never shown himself either intimidated or discou- 
raged. It was, therefore, only justice in the Repub- 
lican party to give to this valiant champion, who 
had foug'ht so many g"Ood fights on her behalf, the 
highest recompense it was in her power to bestow. 
Friends and enemies alike expected it. And besides 
his other claims, the nomination of Mr. Seward en- 
sured to the Republican party the State of New 
York with its thirt3^-five votes, more than one- fifth 
of the total number of votes required to carry the 
election. It seemed, therefore, certain if Mr. 
Seward had not the mnjority on the first division, 

D 'J 



5-3 

that most of the States who mig-ht, as was g-enerally 
the case, have voted at the first round for one of 
their own citizens, would on the second division 
transfer their votes to him and g-ive him a tri- 
umphant majority. 

In a democracy, however, no one can arrive at 
pre-eminence with impunit}"; great talent must be 
atoned for like any other superiority, and it seems 
not unlikely that Mr. Seward will afford another 
instance of that fatality which has kept from the 
Presidential chair the three most remarkable men 
that America has produced for the last fifty years — 
Cla}', Calhoun, and \A'ebster. The Southern men 
findino- him always foremost in the fio'ht, had 
concentrated upon his head all their hatred and 
animosit}' ; they had come to identify him with his 
party, the Seward party, as they called them. 
Every trifling* word that fell from him was com- 
mented upon and distorted. In a meeting* at 
Rochester^ Mr. Seward, in speaking' of the anta- 
g"onism of slavery and freedom, happened to say 
that it was a contest that could have no end. The 
expression that he applied to a contest of principles, 
was at once taken to refer to a contest of parties. 
He was accused of urging on a civil war. The 
name of Seward had in fact become a bug-bear in 
the South, and was never mentioned without threats 
and curses. Unjust and unfounded as were these 
aspersions, well might the Republican party hesitate 



63 

before it took upon itself so g-reat a load of hatred 
and terror ! 

Some local elections that came off during March 
in Rhode Island and in Connecticut were also a 
warning- for the part}^ These two New Eng-land 
States had g-iven in 1856 considerable majorities to 
Fremont^ and the Republicans considered them safe. 
In Rhode Island, however, the Republicans had 
now barely escaped a defeat, and in Connecticut 
their candidate for g*overnor, Mr. Burling'ham, had 
only been elected by a majority of 600 on 80,000 
recorded votes j his election, even by that small 
mnjorit}^, being- due to his g-reat personal popularity, 
and the well known moderation of his character and 
opinions. These two elections had shown them 
how much care was necessary, even in these old 
Puritan States, not to run counter to the con- 
servative instincts of the masses. How much more, 
then, was it necessary to be careful with reference 
to those free States which, in 1856, had voted for 
Mr. Buchanan, and those who were bound to the 
South by the ties of neighbourhood and commerce ; 
such States, for instance, as Indiana, New York, 
New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, Mr. 
Seward's friends arrived at the Convention of Chi- 
cag"o confident, of success. They expected indeed 
that at the first vote Pennsylvania would vote for 
General Cameron, Ohio for Mr. Chase, Illinois for 
Mr. Lincoln, and Missouri for Mr. Bates ; but, 
feeling' sure of New England, they were satisfied 



54 

that their candidate would obtain far more votes 
than an}' other, and that all the g-reat States, after 
having- separately paid a compliment to one of their 
own citizens by voting* for him, would at the second 
round hand over their votes collective!}' to Mr. 
Seward. They were g-rievously mistaken ! Mr. 
Lane and Mr. Curtin, the Eepublican candidates 
for the governorship in Indiana and Pennsylvania 
respectively, men well acquainted Avith public 
opinion in their States, declared that Mr. Seward's 
nomination would ruin their onn prospects of suc- 
cess, and that it would bring* about in their States a 
defeat like that of 1856. Indiana, which had no 
local candidate, at once adopted the nomination of 
Mr. Lincoln candidate for Illinois ; Pennsylvania 
did the same at the second round, and Ohio at the 
third. Mr. Lincoln, who tied Mr. Se\\ard at the 
second round, had, at the third round, a consider- 
able majority. For the Vice-Presidency there was a 
strong* feeling* in favour of one of the Pennsylvania 
candidates, but the New Eng-land delegates, by way 
of reprisals, voted unanimously for Mr. Hannibal 
Hamlin, of Maine, who was elected at the second 
round. After carrying* unanimously the pro- 
g-ramme that was laid before them, the Republican 
Convention dissolved itself, having* completed its 
business in a sing'le day. 

More than thirty thousand persons from the 
nei^hbourino- states had gathered tof>*ether at Chi- 
cago, anxious to obtain the earliest possible intclli- 



55 

§•61106 of the choice of the Convention. The name 
of Mr. Lincoln was received by this vast multitude 
with frantic exclamations of delig'ht. The Avhole 
valley of the Mississippi seemed to be delirious with 
enthusiasm. This was the first occasion on which 
a candidate for the Presidency had been selected from 
without the limits of the old States. That Mr. Lin- 
coln should be preferred to one of the most illus- 
trious statesmen of the confederation appeared to be 
a solemn recognition of the fact that the Western 
States had attained their political majorityj a homag-e 
rendered by the nation at large to the g-rowing* pros- 
perity and future preponderance of those vig'orous 
young- communities. This feeling' showed itself by 
a long" series of noisy ovations, in which the constant 
rattle of fire-arms and roar of cannon g-ave utter- 
ance to the popular enthusiasm. This effervescence 
of the West, in itself an unforeseen omen of success, 
went far towards reconcilino- the Atlantic States to 
the choice of the Convention, and when the romantic 
and interesting' early life of Mr. Lincoln became 
g-enerally known the masses in those states warmly 
espoused the cause. 

The g-randfather of Abraham Lincoln was one of 
the hardy squatters, who with Daniel Boone mi- 
g-rated from Yirg-inia to settle in Kentucky, and who 
paid with their lives the conquest of that '^' land of 
blood.'' He was killed b}- the Indians. His son 
died young- in 1815, leaving- a widow in poverty, and 
several sons, of whom Abraham Lincoln, at that 



56 

time six years of age, was the eldest. The family 
soon after moved into Indiana, where Lincoln went 
throiig-h the hard apprenticeship of a squatter's life. 
He had but little schoohng-, some six months or so, 
but he learned to be master of the rifle, the axe, and 
the ploug-h. Asheg'ot older and strong'er he became 
first a shepherd boy, afterwards workman in a saw 
mill, then a boatman on the Wabash and Mississippi, 
and ultimately a railway platelayer. At the age of 
twenty-one he emigrated into Illinois^ which was 
rapidly settling- at that time, and for about a year 
worked as day-labourer on a farm near Spring-field. 
He devoted his leisure time to self-education, and 
his next promotion was to be clerk in a store. He 
took part as a volunteer in the war against the Black- 
hawk Indians, and was elected captain of his com- 
pany. Two years after that he was elected a member 
of the State legislature, in which he sat for four 
consecutive sessions ; he also at this time beg-an to 
practise, with considerable success, as a barrister. 
Thenceforward he became one of the leaders of the 
Whig' ])arty in Illinois, and took an active part in all 
l)oliticiil contests. Elected to Cong-ress in 1846, he 
withdrew in 1849, for the purpose of devoting" his 
time to the practice of his profession and the educa- 
tion of his children. In 1859 the Repubhcans drew 
him from his retirement, and set him up as candidate 
for the Senate, in opposition to Mr. Douglas. 
During- nearly two months the rival candidates can- 
vassed Illinois, making a fresh speech every day, 



57 

often coming" across each other, and on such occa- 
sions eng-ag'ing-in one of those oratorical duels which 
are the dehght of the American people. In this 
contest Mr. Lincoln showed to considerable advan- 
tag-e, though he had for his opponent one of the most 
renowned public speakers in the Union ; he actually 
received 3000 more votes than his opponent, thoug-h 
the unequal population of the electoral districts g-ave 
the latter the victor}^ It was this contest that 
broug-ht Mr. Lincoln prominently before the Western 
populations, and that g-ained for him their support 
at Chicago. His very moderate and conservative 
opiniojis, evidenced by his conduct in Cong-ress where 
he was a staunch supporter of Henr}^ Cla}", tended 
to re-assure the most timid politicians ; his protec- 
tionist principles endeared him to the manufacturing- 
States ', and the working- classes hailed him as one of 
themselves, a self-made man, whohad known the hard- 
ships and trials of povert}^, and who by intelligence, 
toil, and honesty, had raised himself from the lowest 
sphere to the noblest and most exalted position that 
could be held by the citizen of a g-reat country. 

Mr. Lincoln's nomination was a heavy blow to 
Mr. Douglas. It was on his influence, supposed or 
real, in the Valley of the Mississippi, that the 
latter principally relied. With a Western man op- 
posed to him this influence was much shaken, and 
without the united support of the Democratic party 
he was not sure to escape defeat, even in Illinois. 
These considerations revived the hopes of his per- 



68 

sonal enemies whose courag-e had been somewhat 
damped by his oratorical triumph in the Senate^ and 
by testimonies of S3'mpathy that had reached him 
from the South. In his g'reat speech Mr. Doug-las 
had cut off his own retreat, by declaring* that 
nothino' on earth would induce him to o'ive in to the 
principle that CongTess had a right to interfere in 
the Territories j at the same time the Senate had 
adopted Jefferson Davis's resolutions, and by so 
doino- had o-iven the warrant of its authoritv to the 

DO 

principle he so resolutely opposed. The leading- 
demao-oo'ues of the South came, therefore, to an 
understanding- as to the course the}' should follow in 
the Democratic Convention about to assemble on the 
18th June, at Baltimore, in consequence of the 
resolution come to some weeks before at Charleston. 
Tlie deleo-ates who had seceded at Charleston had 
had a private meeting- at Richmond • it was ex- 
pected that the}' would have nominated candidates, 
the}' were, however, too wise to make a mistake which 
would have deprived them of the rig-ht to vote at 
Baltimore, and rendered Mr. Douo-las's nomination 
a certainty. They arrived therefore, in due time at 
Baltimore, and claimed their right to sit in the Con- 
vention. Their re-admission would have deprived 
Mr. Douo-las of all chance of obtaininof the neces- 
sary majority of two-thirds, it was therefore opposed 
by both jN^orthern and Southern Democrats, and 
after long- stormy debates, their demand Avas re- 
jected. On the other hand, the Convention ad- 



69 

mitted two sets of delegates nominated by Mr. 
Doiio'las's friends in Alabama and Louisiana. This 
unfair proceeding' was followed at once b3"the seces- 
sion of the deleg'ates of Yirg-inia^ and of the Southern 
deleg'ates almost in a body^ and with them seceded 
a certain number of Northern deleg-ates^ including- 
the Chairman, Caleb Cushing-, of Massachusetts. 
While Mr. Douglas's friends, having* succeeded in 
silencing all opposition, proceeded to nominate their 
candidate unanimously, the seceders adjourned to a 
room hard by, which had been prepared for them in 
expectation of what would happen, and there pro- 
ceeded to oro-anize a rival convention. The candi- 
dates the}^ selected were not, as might have been 
supposed, extreme men, they were Mr. Breckin- 
ridge of Kentucky, and Senator Lane of Oregon. 
These nominations bore witness to considerable pru- 
dence and forethouo-ht. General Lane's nomination 
was in fulfilment of a promise made to the delegates 
of Oregon and California in return for their support, 
while that of Mr. Breckinridge was wisely con- 
ceived for the purpose of detaching from Mr. Doug-- 
las the senators and moderate men, inasmuch as 
the candidate, besides being Vice-President at the 
time, was an amiable kindly man, very popular 
with the Democratic party. 

The seceders were 125 in number, out of a con- 
vention of 300 delegates, they, however, I'epresented 
the whole of the South, the only States in which the 
Democratic candidate was safe, and therefore in 



GO 

fact they constituted in themselves the streng-th of 
the part}'. Mr. Doug-las soon found this to his cost ; 
his friends had selected Mr. Fitzpatrick of Alabama 
for the Vice-Presidency ; this g-entleraan^ however^ 
who at an early ag-e had become Governor of his 
State and senator^ courteously refused the in- 
tended honour, and in his place the party were com- 
pelled to fall back upon Mr. Herschel Johnson of 
Georgia, who accepted the post. Unluckily, how- 
ever, the first time he attempted to address the 
people in his own State, of wliich he had been 
Governor, he was hooted and mobbed, and narrowly 
escaped personal injur}^ Mr. Douglas had ima- 
gined that he could confidently reckon on the more 
moderate and enlightened of the Southern men, in 
this also he was mistaken, their zeal on his behalf 
had arisen not from preference for himself, but 
merely because they thought his name to be the only 
one that would awaken an}' sympath}- in the Free 
States ; now that a final rupture had taken place, 
and that no further good could be done, they were 
no lono-er inclined to incur odium amono- their 
neighbours for a cause which they felt was lost. 
They either declined altogether to vote, or else gave 
in their adhesion to Mr. Breckinridge. Mr. Bu- 
chanan, whose vengeance was not even 3'et satiated, 
gave audience to a deputation of the seceding con- 
vention, approved highly the choice the}' had made, 
and promised the most zealous co-operation on the 
part of the government. To give proof of his zeal 



61 

in the cause a subscription was opened in the minis- 
terial departments for Mr. Breckinridg-e, and all the 
officials were recommended to g'ive fifteen daj's' pay 
as their quota, while a g-ood many employees who 
had been unlucky enoug-h to promise Mr. Douglas 
their support were summarily dismissed. Where- 
ever the influence of g"Overnment could make itself 
felt the local Democratic committees pronounced for 
Mr. Breckinridofe. 

ly. 

The severance so long- foreboded was at last ac- 
complished and irrevocable. The vast importance 
of this fact was not to be measured by its influence 
on the chance of success of this or that candidate, 
it had a far wider and more extended bearino*. The 
election of 1856 had shown that a g'reat majorit}^ of 
the citizens of the Northern States were radically 
hostile to slavery j but at that time there existed, 
even in New England, a party ready to make 
common cause with the South, viz. the Northern 
Democrats, who had for a time given their support 
to Mr. Douglas, and whose influence had been 
powerful enough to carry the votes of several States. 
The election of 1860 was destined to make manifest 
the extinction of this intermediate party, the rupture 
of this last bond of union between the two divisions 
of the republic. Not only was it hopeless to at- 
tempt to get the vote of a single Free State for a 



G2 

candidate supported b}' the South, but such a can- 
didate would have opposed to him the energetic 
popuhition of the North in one homog'eneous and 
unanimous mass. The crisis then which was to 
decide the fate of the Union had at hist reall}^ and 
truly arrived. AVhen Mr. AViiifiill, senator for 
Texas, in advocatino* the cause of Mr. Breckinrido-e 
before the citizens of Wheeling-, told them that if 
an}' other candidate was elected the}^ must look for 
storms, that the confederation might indeed continue 
to exist, but would onl}' include thirt3'-three States, 
his audience may have felt that his forebodings were 
true, but they must have felt also that Mr. Breck- 
inrido'e had not a shadow of a chance of success. 
However much people may have been prepared for 
the breaking-up of the Democratic party, an event 
so preg'nant with future consequences could not 
take place without profoundly ag-itating- the public 
mind. 

These part}^ dissensions were, however, g-ratifv- 
ing' to the Unionists. They thought they were 
sure of all those Southern States in which in 1856 
they had ecpialled the Democratic party at that time 
unanimous, and they therefore hoped that their can- 
didate would come before Cong-ress ^\•it]l more votes 
than Mr. Breckinridg-e, an important item in his 
prospects of success. In reality, however, it was the 
llepublican party that reaped the fruit of all these 
divisions, to them the confhct in the Central States 
would no long-er be ag-ainst a compact phalanx of 



63 

adversaries, but ag-ainst a demoralized and disor- 
g-anized mob. Their hopes of victory became strong-er 
day by day, and to their g-reat joy the first fruit of 
all this discord was to convert a portion of their 
enemies into allies. Since Mr. Van Buren and the 
free-soilers had been excommunicated from the De- 
mocratic party on the gToundof suspected orthodoxy 
on the slavery question, the " fire-eaters" had had 
it all their own way in the South, and had manag-ed 
not only the politics of the part}^, but also the tone 
of its newspapers. Slavery, therefore, in the opinion 
of these scribes was no long-er as it used to be twenty 
years ag-o, an evil, necessary indeed, but 3'et an evil ; 
on the contrary, it was now the corner-stone of the 
Constitution, a civilizing- moral institution useful 
alike to black and white, its propag-andism was 
preached j to suppress slavery, exclaimed at Charles- 
ton Mr. Goulden of Georg-ia, would be to make 
American civilization retrograde two centuries ! 
When Mr. Jefferson Davis was aro'uino- that Con- 
gress ought to support the extension of slavery he 
dared to invoke the interests of humanit}'. The 
rigorous censorship, which stops at the frontier of 
the Southern States the books and newspapers of 
the North, which closes the mouths of travellers, 
and by the threat of murder silences even the mi- 
nisters of the g-ospel, made it impossible to refute 
these monstrous doctrines. Mr. Dong'las's cold 
expediency mig-lit not harmonize with the views of 
enlightened and christian men on these subjects, but 



04 

it was preferable a hundred times to their brutal 
eulog'y of a terrible social evil. It was impossible 
for him even to defend his non-intervention prin- 
ciples without contradicting- what was now the 
fiivourite theme of the South, that slavery oug-ht to 
be extended on account of its high and excellent 
moral quahties. In all his arguments for squatter 
sovereignty he was obliged to beg the question that 
the principle of slavery is bad, and his opponents 
were not slow in bringing this fi\ct into strong re- 
lief. From this it naturally followed that an argu- 
ment upon the pros and cons of slavery should arise 
amono- those very Southern men who had hitherto 
never questioned its merits, and that the seed of 
thouo-ht and reflection should be so\\'n in certain 
mindsj which might hereafter fructify into sound 
and wholesome ideas. 

The tide had turned, and was now flowing in flavour 
of the Eepublicans. The members of this party 
had drawn up and carried through the House of 
Representatives a Bill modifying the Tariff' in a 
Protectionist sense, but which from its moderation 
might be looked upon as a compromise, and justi- 
fied by the state of the public finances. All the in- 
fluence of the Northern Democrats was brought to 
bear on Mr. Buchanan, by representing to him that 
it was a life or death question for the party in the 
Central States, to induce him to use his influence 
with the Southern Senators to allow the Bill to 
pass. Mr. Buchanan refused to make use of his 



65 

influence ; the measure was postponed until the 
close of the session, but was at last rejected. Im- 
mediately after this unpopular vote^ the Report of 
the Committee of the House of Representatives was 
published, in which flag-rant charges of political 
corruption, of venality, of falsif3'ino- electoral lists, 
of sale of places, were broug-ht home to several hig'li 
officials, and to sundr}^ leaders of the Democratic 
party. The Republicans did not fail to give to 
these charg-es the widest possible circulation ; they 
justified all the attacks they had for four years 
made on the party, and some of them were of a 
nature to explain the " reason wh\^ " of their own 
previous want of success. 

It so happened that the population of Illinois had, 
in obedience to the universal custom in America of 
nicknaming- political celebrities, given Mr. Lincoln 
the soubriquet of "honest Abraham;" this was 
taken up by the multitude, and what had been in- 
tended merel}' as a tribute to the private virtues of 
an individual, became an expression giving- utter- 
ance to the national feeling- of disg-ust and con- 
tempt for a venal executive. The inhabitants of 
Spring-field, anxious to commemorate the nomina- 
nation of their fellow citizen by the Convention at 
Chicag-o, sent their municipal authorities to compli- 
ment him, and at the same time to announce their 
intention to fire a salute of one hundred and one 
g-uns. " Let us be economical at once," said Mr. 
Lincoln, laug-hing-, " one-and-twenty rounds will 

E 



do." This harmless joke went the round of the 
Confederation^ and men were g'lad to recog-nize in 
its author one who would stop the frauds on the 
Exchequer, and who would restore order and 
economy to the public finances. 

As day by day the Eepublicans gained streng-th, 
the hearts of their opponents began to fail. The 
Unionists made no progress in the North ; the choice 
of the Republicans had cut away the ground from 
under their feet ; they had looked for the name of 
Mr. Seward, and had intended to make political 
capital out of all the hatred and terror that that name 
evoked. The nomination of an old Whig, unpledged 
to any extreme policy, and to Avhose moderation Mr. 
Benjamin, of Louisiana, himself bore testimony, 
quite upset all their plans and all the hopes they had 
founded upon them . No conservative classes, scared 
by the nomhiation of Mr. Seward, flocked to their 
standard ! The traditions of 185G, were not in their 
favour, they had proved the party to be Aveak in 
numbers, giving* little hope of a majority in any Free 
State ; and then there was the Report of the Par- 
liamentary Committee, which told sad tales about 
the Unionists, how for instance they had not always 
fouo'ht under true colours ; in that Report it was set 
forth how in 1850, the managing* Committee of the 
Democratic party had spent larg-e sums in the 
Central States in subsidizing- newspapers, speakers, 
and even committees for the Unionists, that this 
was done with the sole object of dividing- Mr. 



67 

Buchanan's opponents, and that to these tactics 
the President had owed his success in Pennsylvania, 
and with it his election. The newspapers and the 
men who had plaj-ed this part of decoy ducks were 
cited by name, and the sum mentioned that each had 
received. These revelations weighed heavily on the 
Unionist party, they tainted its every act with 
suspicion, and made many stand aloof who would 
g"ladly have joined a real and substantial party, but 
who did not choose to be the dupes or the tools of 
a band of intrio-uers. As to the two sections of the 
Democrats, they were much more busy in tearing* 
each other to pieces than in opposing the common 
enemy. The one was alwa} s asserting that Lincoln 
was ten times better than Douglas, the other that he 
was far preferable to Breckinridge, so that by degrees 
the effect produced was a general impression that 
Lincoln was the man. Thus the election of 18G0, 
when it came round had none of those incidents of 
deep interest that marked the election of 1856. It 
was not the earnest, feverish, maddening conflict of 
two great parties of nearty equal strength, alike 
confident, and where victory remained in suspense 
until the last moment. On the one side was confi- 
dence, on the other discourag'ement, forebodings of 
evil, and mutual recriminations. The whole interest 
of the electoral drama w^as concentrated on Mr* 
Doua'las. Of the four candidates he was the most 
distinguished, and also the one whose chance of suc- 
cess was least. That he should win three things 

e2 



68 

were necessary : firstly, that Mr. Lincoln should not 
ohtain the absolute majorit}-^ ; secondl}', that him- 
self should be one of the three first candidates ; and 
thirdly, that the choice of the House of Representa- 
tives should fall on him. It seemed unlikel}' that he 
should even attain to the second of these prelimi- 
naries. The do2'2*ed hatred of Mr. Buchanan, which 
flag-g-ed not though the defeat of his enemy was cer- 
tain, kept raising all over the North committees for 
Breckinridge with the view of dividing* the Demo- 
crats, and he had succeeded in exting-uishing the 
hopes of Mr. Douglas in every Free State, except, 
perhaps, Illinois. In the South, the States that had 
seceded at Charleston were safe for Breckinridge. 
There was nothing left, therefore, but seven or eight 
Slave States, and in them he must beat the friends 
of Mr. Breckinridge, supported by the President, and 
the Unionists. His position appeared to be despe- 
rate ; yet he must go on, retreat was impossible. 
On the one hand he would have got no thanks for a 
simulated desire to restore harmony to the party, 
and on the other, he would have been compelled to 
sacrifice the principle on which he had based his 
secession from the ranks of the Ultra-democrats. 

Mr. Douglas determined to carry the thing 
through, though he felt no doubt as to the issue. 
To the ultras of the South his defeat would be due, 
and he resolved to concentrate all his energies against 
their candidate, and do them all the harm in his 
powor. A thorough beating would lower their 



69 

pride^ show them then* weaknesSj and make them see 
that there was no safety for sUive institutions but iu 
a reorganization of the Democratic party. They 
must then return to him^ embodying- as he did the 
Democratic party of the North 5 and the more he 
made them feel his power^ the less likely they were 
to rebel again. Mr. Douglas not only made his 
managing committee publish an address pledging 
themselves to no compromise with Mr. Breckinridge, 
but he determined to carry the war in person into 
the enemy's camp. A custom has grown up in the 
United States, founded on prudential motives, that 
when a public man has accepted a nomination to 
the Presidency he should give up all appearances in 
public of every kind, he should write no letter and 
make no speech ', all letters respecting his opinions, 
past or present, he hands over to his committee, 
and they undertake to answer them. No candidate 
was ever known to make a canvassing tour on his 
own behalf. All this etiquette Mr. Douglas scat- 
tered to the winds. For three months he journej^ed 
throuo'h the leno-th and breadth of the confederation, 
making every day a speech, and speaking every day 
upon the same text. " The republicans and fire- 
eaters," said he, " are equally conspiring to destroy 
the Union : the foruier are always threatening sepa- 
ration, the latter incessantly fanning the flame of a 
deplorable contest. The only means of preserving 
the integrity of the confederation is to put in prac- 
tice the fundamental principle of the constitution. 



70 

the sovereig-nty of the people, and allow always and 
everywhere the majority of the inhabitants to decide 
whether slavery shall or shall not be established. 
By this means alone can the separatists of North 
and South be rendered equally powerless." All the 
laro-e cities of the Slave States were in turn visited 
by Mr. Doug-las, and thanks to the oratorical spar- 
rino- matches in which he almost daily eng-ag-ed with 
Mr. Breckinridg-e's supporters, the contest did not 
lack life and interest. 

Such then was the state of parties in America at 
the close of the exciting- ordeal of selecting- can- 
didates. The Republicans had made a choice that 
secured to them the conservative classes and all the 
enemies of slavery ] the Unionists, with no definite 
policy, inspired general distrust ; lastl}', the Demo- 
crats were divided into two sections, the South sup- 
porting* Breckinridg-e, the North, Doug-las, both 
contending- ag-ainst the true interest of their common 
party. The electoral campaig-n opened with a suc- 
cess of the Republicans, an omen of g-reater victories 
in store for them. General Lane, the candidate of 
the Democrats for the Vice-Presidency, was rejected 
from the Senate by Oreg'on, and Frank Blair was 
re-elected representative by St. Louis of Missouri. 
It was Mr. Blair's first election which produced so 
g-reat a sensation three years before, when to the 
astonishment of everybody the capital of a Slave 
State chose as their representative to Congress a 
declared opprment of slaver}-. 



71 

At the following- election a Democrat was returned 
by a very small majority, but Mr. Blair succeeded 
in proving- that his defeat was owing- to fraudulent 
practices in the election, and at the close of the 
session of 1860 his opponent had been declared un- 
duly elected, and he had obtained the seat. As 
however his seat would have been vacated in due 
course before the recess was over, Mr. Blair at once 
resigned in order to be re-elected, and thus give his 
party the moral support of an electoral triumph at 
the opening- of the campaig-n. His plan met with 
full success, and a llepublican victory in a Slave 
State was the first mortification of the Democratic 
party. A local election took place some days later 
in Kentucky, the support of the Republicans enabled 
a Unionist candidate to beat the Democrat. 

The Southern men beg'an to perceive with dismay 
that a Republican nucleus was forming- in the Slave 
States themselves. Encourag-ed by Blair's election, 
his friends undertook to make out a list of federal 
electors in favour of Lincoln, and thus to vote 
directly for the Republican candidate instead of 
voting* for the Unionist list as they had done in 
1856. No stop was put to their proceeding's, and 
no attempt was made to set aside and consider as 
void all Republican votes, as had been done in 1856 
with the votes recorded for Colonel Fremont. In 
Kentucky, a true hero, worthy of the name he bore, 
Mr. Cassius Clay, had made himself for many 3'ears 
the missionary of freedom. He had formed in the 



mountains of Kentucky a little band of Republicans, 
raainl}^ emigTants fi'om Pennsylvanin reinforced by 
converts. Frequently had his life been in dang-er. 
In March, I860, his villng-e had been invaded, and 
liis "vvife and famil}' threatened with exile; but 
nothing- would intimidate him, and at last his 
indomitable nerve had compelled his opponents to 
bow to freedom of speech in his person. With his 
revolver and bowie knife in his belt, he had been 
the apostle of Kepublican opinions m Kentuck}^, 
none caring* to molest him, for it was known that he 
would sell his life dear. His intrepidity and perse- 
verance as well as his open-hearted g'ood humour 
had won the hearts of that wild population, who 
thoug-ht they saw^ in him a worthy representative of 
the Kentuckinn of the good old times. In the same 
way there had been formed in the Hig'lilands of 
Tennessee, a region unfitted for negTO labour and 
gradually settling- from the North, a few^ isolated 
bands of anti-slavery men who encourag'ed by the 
depression of the Democrats no longer concealed 
their republican sympathies. In their case ag*ain 
no opposition was offered to the free expression 
of their opinions, and encourag'ed b}' their example 
the inhabitants of the Northern counties of Virg-inia 
hoisted the Republican standard, without bring-ing* 
upon themselves the persecutions that had followed 
a similar course in 1850. Lastl}"", in Maryland, 
a Republican committee was openly formed in Balti- 
more which gave out that in future it should bring 



73 

forward its candidates at the local elections. The 
Eepublicans of Delaware also organized with the in- 
tention of freeing' themselves from the 3'oke of the 
Unionists. Thus, if the free central States obey to 
a certain degree the impulse of the South, they also 
react upon her by the natural spread of liberal ideas, 
since the six conterminous Slave States each contain 
a g'erm of anti-slavery opinion. In reality all these 
manifestations were without effect upon the election, 
and did not benefit Mr. Lincoln by bringing- him a 
sing'le vote, but they were of extreme importance 
with reg-ard to the future, and were the most sig-ni- 
ficant feature of the whole electoral conflict. 

The rejection by the Senate of the Tariff Bill had 
exactly the effect that Mr. Bigler had predicted. 
It produced a deep feeling- of irritation in the manu- 
facturing- districts J in New Jersey, for instance, 
where many mills were closed in consequence of 
English competition, and where emigration was 
thinning- the T^orking* population, and in Pennsyl- 
vania where the iron districts were sufferino-, strono- 
symptoms of opposition began to display themselves. 
It now seemed likely that Mr. Lincoln would suc- 
ceed in these two States and in Indiana, in which 
case his election would be safe. But one course 
remained open to his opponents, by which this con- 
summation might be avoided and the election trans- 
ferred to Congress, and that was a coalition among- 
themselves. 

In New Jersey, where Mr. Breckinridge's friends 



74 

wielded the power of the Democratic org-anization, 
an understanding" was come to with the Unionists, 
both parties ag-reed to support a common list of fe- 
deral electors equall}' divided between the in, so that 
each candidate should have half the votes of the 
State. In New York, where Mr. Doug-las's friends 
formed the streng-th of the part}', a similar under- 
standing- was attempted ; ten out of the thirty-five 
electors were offered by the Democrats to the Union- 
ists, but there was some mystification in the matter 
as to whether these electors were to be pledg-ed to 
vote for Mr. Dell under an}' circumstances, or whe- 
ther thev mio'ht not under certain conditions vote 
for Doug-las. This was never made quite clear, and 
each party read the barg-ain by the light of their own 
interests. It so happened that the Unionists were 
in the main strong- native Americans, zealous ng'uinst 
naturalization and foreig-ners, while Mr. Doug-las's 
supporters were in g-reat part Germans, who held in 
abomination the Unionists and all who ag-reed with 
them. No sooner, therefore, had the coalition list 
appeared, than persons included on both sides has- 
tened to withdraw their names and to denounce the 
scheme. Mr. Ottendorfer, the editor of the leading- 
German newspaper, peremptorily declined to allow 
his name to appear in the same list with those of 
electors known to be hostile to the naturalized 
citizens. Some also of the chiefs of the Unionists, 
such as Messrs. Dodg-e and Putnam, protested 
ag-ainst the coalition, they had meant to support a 



75 

houdjide party and not to be a catspaw of the De- 
mocrats ; they g'ave out their intention of supporting" 
Mr. Lincohi, and from that time forward openly 
took part in the Repubhcan demonstrations. 

The elections of Vermont and Maine^ which took 
place early in September^ and in which the Repub- 
licans had it all their own way, convinced Mr. Lin- 
coln's opponents^ that it would require all the 
streno'th they could muster to defeat him, and that 
they had no time to lose. The President and his 
Ministers felt that they must act and that speedity, 
they therefore took the initiative, and a bitter pill it 
must have been to them, in persuading* Mr. Breck- 
inridg-e's supporters to come to an understanding* 
with Mr. Doug-las's friends, and lay before them a 
scheme for a triple coalition in the Northern States. 
The neo'otiation was long' and troublesome, several 
times it came to a stop, and at each dilemma a fresh 
batch of Democrats went over in disg-ust to the Re- 
publicans. Perhaps the most distasteful part of the 
transaction was its being' a hole and corner proceed- 
ino- between the committees, and its inevitable result 
that in the local elections a mixed list should be put 
out, in which g'ood care must be taken of the private 
interests of the leaders of all the three parties • this 
had an ugly look of barter and sale, the quid 2)ro 
quo being the consciences and votes of the indepen- 
dent electors. Many g-ood sort of people protested 
ag'ainst this arrang-ement, Avliich disposed of their 
votes without asking* their leave, and the feeling* 



76 

evoked, tended greatly to weaken the Unionist party 
in New York. In Pennsylvania^, the same sort of 
thing- took place with about the same result. The 
October elections were looked for with much anxiety 
as affording a means of gauging- the strength of the 
coalition; on the 8th of October, just one month 
before the nomination of the Federal electors, the 
three great central States, Pennsylvania, Ohio and 
Indiana, representing in the ag-greg-ate 63 votes for 
the Presidenc}', were to elect their Governors. In 
these three States the opposition had coalesced, 
nevertheless the three Republicans were elected. In 
Pennsylvania, Mr. Curtin had a majority of 30,000, 
and the number of electors that voted was so consi- 
derable that there was no chance of reversing* the 
decision. But, perhaps, the most striking- feature 
was the result of the voting- in Philadelphia, where, 
instead of a Democratic majority of two-thirds of 
the electors, Mr. Foster, notwithstanding- his great 
personal popularity, could onl}^ manage to head the 
Republican candidate by a paltry 2000. The ^ New 
York Herald,' the heart and soul of the triple fusion, 
was obliged to allow that the game was up in Penn- 
sylvania, and that the onl}' chance was to tight it 
out in New York. It therefore entreated, in despair- 
ing tones, the three oppositions to concentrate on 
New York all their energies and all their resources, 
not even flinching from bribery if necessary. There 
is nothing, however, so trying to the temper as de- 
feat ; the three worthy members of the coalition fell 



77 

out, and each threatened to try his chance alone. 
There was for a time, a talk of making* all the three 
candidates withdraw, and putting' up a sing-le one 
instead, but the time had g^one by, it was too late for 
any such device, and for want of an3^thino- better to 
do, the trio spent the month of October in mutual 
recrimination and abuse. 

As a forlorn hope an attempt was made at the last 
moment to put the screw on New York ; all the 
Southern houses countermanded their orders, or post- 
poned them until after the election j heavy sales of 
stock were made on their account ; they required 
the payment of all debts due to them in cash, the 
deposits in the New York banks diminished rapid!}', 
and it seemed as if the crisis of 1857 was about to 
return. But the whole thing* was too artificial to 
last, especially at a time when English speculators 
were making- daily purchases of corn from the West 
to an immense amount. Political intimidation was 
next tried, and it proved as unsuccessful as the 
monetar}^ " screw.'' The Governor of South Carolina, 
in opening- the Session of the Leg-islature, recom- 
mended the two Houses to take the necessary steps 
to enable South Carolina to secede from the con- 
federation, if Mr. Lincoln should be nominated. 
The leg-islature named a commission with plenary 
powers to neg'otiate, in such an event, the secession 
ef South Carolina, and it decided that it would pro- 
lono- its session until the 9th of November, so as to 
be in readiness ibr all eventualities. The Democratic 



and Unionist newspapers made a g-reat hubbub about 
this important resolution. Unluckily it was not the 
first time that the legislature of South Carolina had 
held a similar lano-uage, and people remembered how 
President Jackson in 1833, hud demanded and ob- 
tained the disbanding- of the Carolinian militia, by 
threatenino- to march ao-ainst them at the head of 
the Federal troops. A single State could do nothing-j 
the South to be feared should be unanimous, and 
that was far from being the case. Impartial obser- 
vers noticed that as Mr. Lincoln's election became 
more and more probable a change came over the 
language of all the more important Southern men. 
In June nothing was heard but sinister prophecies. 
Mr. Lincoln could never be President of the whole 
Confederation, his election would give the signal for 
a fearful civil w^ar. In October, Mr. Breckinridge's 
supporters had found out that they should wait and 
see what Mr. Lincoln meant to do, and not dissolve 
the Union until he had perpetrated some flagrant 
ao-o-ression. The threats of the Ultras did not, there- 
fore, intimidate the North, but they were a powerful 
support to the Unionists in the South as that party 
became the champion of union and law. It remained 
for the election to prove that the separatists were in a 
minorit}', even in those States wherein they appeared 
to possess political preponderance. 

The 6th of November arrived. The city of 
New York, over-ridden by the influences we have 
described, gave a majority of 28,000 to the triple 



79 

fusion ; but the vote of the State was neverthe- 
less for Lincoln, who received an enthusiastic 
support from the country electors. In Pennsyl- 
vania, the Republicans expected their October 
majorit}' of 80,000 to diminish, on the contrary it 
increased to 80,000. All the Free States, except 
New Jersey, which was won by the coalition, voted 
for Lincoln. They g-ave him 1G9 votes, that is 17 
more than the absolute majority, and a month later 
it was ascertained that Oreg-on and California had 
also given him their support. The central States, 
Delaware,Yiro-inia, Maryland, Tennessee, Kentuck}^, 
the oldest, richest, and most populous of the Slave 
States voted for Bell, who obtained 57 votes, 
including" the seven for New Jersey. Mr. Breckin- 
ridge only succeeded in the nine most South- 
ern States, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, 
Mississippi, Florida, Georg'ia, and the two Carolinas ; 
in several of the States he had only a small majority 
over Bell, and he would have failed in all if Doug- 
las's supporters could have been induced to vote 
for the Unionist candidate. At the bottom of the 
list came Mr. Doug-las, who only g-ot the vote of the 
sing'le State of Missouri. Yet Mr. Douglas may 
be said to have, to a g'reat extent, succeeded in {ac- 
complishing- his wishes. In the Free States he ob- 
tained more votes than Bell and Breckinridg-e put 
together, and four or five times as many as Breckin- 
ridge alone. He thus proved that the only Demo- 
cratic party in the North w^as the party pledged to 
himself. In the Central States, with the exception 



80 

of Missouri, he succumbed to Bell, but on the other 
hand he distanced Breckinridg-e. Even in the States 
of the extreme South he obtained a decent minority. 
He haS; therefore, in his defeat the satisfaction of 
having' proved be^^ond a doubt the weakness of the 
Ultra part}'. 

This proof of weakness is the real salient fact of 
the election of 18C0, for it removes the hazard that 
existed of a civil war. In face of the unanimous 
North, it would have required a South equally 
unanimous, equally determined not to g-ive way. 
The vote that the five States g-ave to Mr. Bell and 
the vote of Missouri are equivalent to a declaration 
of fidelity to the Union. The nine States who alone 
voted for Breckinridg"e are not strong' enough to try 
anything- by themselves \ what would be the worth 
of a Southern Confederation in which was not found 
Yiro^inia, Tennessee, Missouri, or Kentucky ? It 
is even doubtful whether in the nine ultra States 
themselves the separatists are powerful enough to 
overcome the energ-etic opposition of the Bell and 
Douglas party combined to support the Union. It 
seems too almost certain that their indio-nation will 

o 

evaporate in words. Should this be the case the 
election of 1800 will have had the desirable result 
of laying' the ever-recurring- phantom of the disso- 
lution of the Union. When the first bitterness of 
defeat is over, the South will recog'nise the folly of 
attempting- to transform Cong-ress into a society for 
the propag-ation of slavery against the will of the 



81 

vast majority of American citizens. They will feel 
the madness and folly of irritating- the North and 
risking- the public peace for a mere abstract theory. 
As Mr. Goulden, a wealthy planter of Georgia and 
the largest slaveholder in the State^ remarked in the 
Convention at Charleston, the leo-alrig-ht to establish 
slavery in the Territories would be simply useless ; 
" for what is a right if you have not the means of 
exercising- it^ and those means 3'ou do not possess/' 
he added^ ^'' sow. have hardly slaves enough for your 
own estates ; you can only fill Kansas, Nebraska, 
and the other Territories with slaves by depopulating- 
Maryland, Virginia, and Missouri, which would then 
become Free States ; you will displace your own 
streng-th and add to that of your adversaries, Ee- 
open the slave trade, let us import all the negroes 
we want from Africa, and then if you please 3"0u 
may undertake to increase the number of the Sla,ve 
States and propag-ate slavery • but until you do that 
your efforts are useless." 

There was a g;reat leaven of truth in this speech 
of Mr. Goulden's, and the Southern men will find it 
to be so at last. There is no fear that they w ill re- 
open the slave trade ; not indeed that they would re- 
coil before the execration of all civilized nations, but 
simply because they could not do it without an im- 
mense depreciation of their own private fortunes, of 
which a considerable portion is invested in slaves. 
Slaver}^ is, therefore, destined to remain stationar}-, 
and not to advance is to recede. The Free States 

F 



will pursue their onward path of progress^ they will 
by deg-rees surround the slave-labour portion of the 
territory, and the irresistible contact of liberty will 
ultimatel}' emancipate the slave. 



83 



NOTE 

On the Judgment of the Su}>reme Court of the United 
States in the case ofDred Scott versus Sandford. 

The plaintiff, Dred Scott, was a Negro slave in 
1834, belonging- to Dr. Emerson. In that year his 
master took him to a place, Fort Snelling, north of 
36° 30' of latitude. While at Snellino- he married, 
and had two daughters, issue of the marriage, one 
born north, the other south of 30° 30' latitude. 
Subsequently Emerson took Dred Scott and his 
family into the Slave State of Missouri and sold them 
to Sandford. Dred Scott brought an action in the 
Circuit Court of the United States to recover his 
freedom. 

By act of Congress it was declared " that slavery 
and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment 
for crime, shall be for ever prohibited in all that 
part of the territorj^, &c. north of 30° 30' north 
latitude, not included in the State of Missouri.'' It 
was allowed that Fort Snelling was within the 
prohibited country. 

The case was tried on appeal. Judgment was 
given against the plaintiff on two grounds. 

1st. He had no right to sue, not being a citizen. 

Sndl}^ The " Missouri compromise" was ipso facto 
void, being unconstitutional The same defect 
attaching to any acts of Congress adverse to or 
limiting slavery. 



84 

A few extracts will expluin the otouikI on which 
the jiidg'ment of the Court was g-iven. 

Tane}', C.J., in delivering* the judg'nient of the 
Court; said; with reference to the first point : — 

" This is certainly a very serious question, and one that 
now, for the first time, has been brought for decision 
before this Court. The question is simply this, can a 
Negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country 
and sold as slaves, become a member of the political com- 
munity formed and brought into existence by the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and as such become entitled 
to all the rights and privileges and immunities guaranteed 
by that instrument to the citizen? — one of which rights 
is the privilege of suing in a Court of the United States 
in the cases specified in the Constitution." 

There being- no explicit declaration on the subject 
in the Constitution, the Court consider that they 
must interpret the word citizen according to the 
feelino's and views of the framers of the document. 
The}^, therefore, endeavour " to realize the state of 
jmblic opinion in relation to that unfortunate race" 
at the time the Constitution was drawn; and having 
made it out to their satisfaction, g-ive it their 
stamp; as being- the j^i'cscnt law of the liepublic. 

*' They had for more than a century before been re- 
garded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit 
to associate with the white race, either in social or political 
relations ; and so far inferior, that t/iey had no riyhts 
wJiich the white majt was boimd to respect ; and that the 
Negro mi fjht justly and laufidhj he reduced to slavery for his 
benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary 
article of traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it." 



■ 85 

Upon this arg-iiment, subsequent!}^ amplified and 
diluted throug-h man}^ P^g'^s, it is decided that such 
an individual cannot have been meant to be a citizen^ 
and therefore is not a citizen. 

The decision of the Court was g-iven b}^ six 
judg-es against two^ McLean and Curtis dissenting-. 

In Judge Curtis's judgment a curious instance is 
given to show that in 1803 the possibility of a 
Negro citizen was contemplated. In an act of 
Congress of that year masters of vessels are pro- 
hibited under certain conditions to import or bring 
" any negro, mulatto, or other person of colour, not 
being a native or citizen or registered seaman of the 
United States." 

Much stress had been laid in the judgment of the 
Court on the words of the Militia Act, which di- 
rects the enrolment of "every free, able-bodied, 
wdiite male citizen." Upon which Judge Curtis 
remarks, " The assumption from this that none but 
white persons are citizens would be as inconsistent 
with the just import of this language, as that all 
citizens are able-bodied, or males !" 

The Court after explaining at great length the 
cause of the want of jurisdiction of the Circuit Court 
from whence the appeal came, and also its own want 
of jurisdiction, proceeds to give the citizens of the 
United States the benefit of its opinion, and that of 
the several judges, on the slave question in general. 
Mr. Justice Nelson seems to have been awake to 
the extraordhiary proceeding of appending a politi- 



86 

cal harang'ue to the judgment of a " Court of Jus- 
tice" which had just decided that an appeal must be 
dismissed^ being- "coram non judice/' so he tells us 
" that if we suppose that the Court is acting- extra 
judiciall}' in g'iving- an opinion^ because it has decided 
that this Court has no jurisdiction to examine the 
case upon its merits," that " such an assertion is an 
error arising" from misapprehension." The error he 
explains, trul}^ enoug-h, to arise from people sup- 
posing* the Supreme Court of the United States to 
be guided by the same rules as other Courts else- 
where. 

The slavery question is settled in the broadest 
and most decided way. Some further extracts from 
the " decision" will show that, in the opinion of the 
six judg-es, the Republic is saddled with an incubus 
in Territory and State, north and south, slave and 
free, from which not even Cong-ress has power to 
free her. 

After premising' 

" That tlie Federal Government can exercise no power 
over the person or property of a citizen beyond what the 
Constitution confers, nor lawfully deny him any right 
which it has reserved :" 

The judg-ment g'oes on to suppose an extreme 
case. 

" No one^ we presume, will contend that Congress can 
deny to the people the right to keep and bear arras, or tlic 
right to trial by jury, or compel any one to be a witness 
against himself in a criminal proceeding." " These powers, 



87 

and others which it is not necessary to enumerate here, 
are in express terms denied to the General Govern- 
ment, and the rights of private property have been guarded 
with equal care. Hence an Act of Congress which de- 
prives a citizen of the United States of his liberty or pro- 
perty, merely because he came himself or brought his 
property into a particular territory of the United States, 
and who had committed no offence against the laws, 
could hardly be dignified with the name of due process of 
law." 

After proclaiming" their duty " to protect private 
property ag'ainst the encroachments of the Govern- 
mentj" the Court solemnl}" gives utterance to the 
following" astounding' dictum : — 

" Upon these considerations it is the opinion of the 
Court that the Act of Congress which prohibited a citizen 
from holding and owning property of this kind {i.e. slaves) 
in the territory of the United States north of the line 
therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, 
and is therefore void ; and that neither Dred Scott him- 
self nor any of his family were made free by being carried 
into this territory, even if they had been carried there by 
the owner with the intention of becoming a permanent 
resident." 

The innovation of considering* a slave a mere 
chattel or portion of goods, upon which this super- 
structure of " constitutional law" was founded, was 
as g'reat and surprising in America as it would be 
in Europe. 

Judge McLean in his able " opinion'' stated " in 
1851 the Court of Appeals of South Carolina recog- 



88 

nised the principle that a slave being* taken to a free 
state became free ;" and he added^ " The slave 
states have g-enerally adopted the rule that where a 
master has resided with his slave in a state or terri- 
tory where slavery is prohibitedj the slave was 
entitled to his freedom everywhere. This was the 
settled doctrine of the Supreme Court of Missouri. 
It has been so held in Mississippi, in Yirg'inia, in 
Louisiana, formerly in Kentucky, Maryland, and in 
other states." 

The doctrine would therefore appear to be as 
much opposed to precedent, as it is repulsive to com- 
mon sense, and revolting- to humanity. 

We can hardly wonder that the Northern States, 
formerly Free, but now, until this decision is re- 
versed. Slave States, have been compelled at last to 
take up the challeng'e thus insolently Hung' in their 
faces. They are, however, strong* enoug'h to hold 
their own, and if they should hereafter strike their 
flao* to the South and submit to the brand of 
slaver}', they will deserve to bear it. We will, 
therefore, shortly consider the effect of this decision 
of the Suj)reme Court upon the persons it most 
immediatel}^ concerns, who have none but God to 
help them, — the Neg*ro slave, and the free black. 

When we reflect that the decision we have just 
considered affects 4,490,000 human beings, unarmed 
and defenceless, in the midst of twice that number 
of bitter and implacable enemies, armed to the 
teeth, we mtiy well say of them in the words of 



89 

Scripture, ^^ that the}'- are cast down hound in the 
midst of the burning fiery furnace." All hope is 
taken from them, redress they have none, they may 
be robbedj ill-treated, trampled upon, kidnapped, 
their wives, their children, themselves, hurried down 
South and sold in the plantations, " for the black 
man has no rig-hts which the white man is bound to 
respect." And such has been the result : kidnapping" 
the free blacks and their families, men who have 
been free for generations, and who have the tastes 
and education of free men, is now an ^^institution" 
of the Southern States. And the States themselves, 
unwilling* to leave this lucrative trade entirely to pri- 
vate speculators, have gone into the business. In 
1859 the legislature of Arkansas passed a law 
banishing' all free negroes from the State. All the 
wretched beinofs that had not left house and home 
before January 1, 1860, were sold by auction for 
slaves ! Missouri, in the same way, has passed a 
law by which all free negroes found in the territory 
of the State on September 1, 1861, oxe ipso facto 
slaves. If any free negro from another State 
should enter Missouri, at the end of twelve hours 
he becomes a slave. Louisiana, not to be left behind 
in the race, has voted a law the counterpart of 
Missouri. Mississippi, more keen after blood-money 
than her sisters, gave the free negroes only six 
months' law, from January 1 to Juty 1, 1860, but 
with a refinement of Pecksniffian morality which 
makes one shudder, it added a clause that the money 

G 



90 

realized b}' their sale should be spent in founding- 
schools. Georgia has endeavoured to accomplish 
the same ends with similar unblushing- hypocrisy, 
and has enacted that all free negroes convicted of 
idleness or immorality should be slaves for a year, 
and that for the second offence the penalty should 
be slavery for life. 

The inhabitants of Mar3dand have petitioned their 
Legislature that the 75,000 free negroes residing 
in their State be made slaves at once and divided 
among' them, and the refusal the}- got was accom- 
panied by measures that will rapidly accomjDlish 
their wish. It is therefore evident that the Legis- 
latures are awake to the fact that they must be stir- 
rings if they do not wish to leave to private hands 
all the rich booty with which the Dred Scott de- 
cision has provided them. 

With respect to the poor JN^egro Slave his fate 
is now much as it used to be, but in one respect it 
is agg^ravated, he has lost the last resource of the 
captive, hope. The Dred Scott decision ma}' be 
said to have made his wretched existence a true 
Hell on earth, and to have inscribed in letters of 
fire over the portals of his life — 

Lasciate ogni speranza ! 

The opinions of the Judges in this leading* case 
are contained in 230 closely printed octavo pages. 
The decision of the Court delivered by the Chief 
Justice is weak and verbose, wanting- in that ac- 



91 

curacy and care we are accustomed to recog-nize in 
the recorded decisions of our Courts, deeply ting-ed 
with prejudice, and defective in g-rammar ; it is 
chieHy remarkable for two thing's. 

1st. — Directly, for its bearing* on the prospects 
of four and a half millions of human being-s, 
and incidentally, for its destruction of the 
American Union. 
"Behold how great a matter a Uttle fire kindleth." 

2ndly. — For g-iving* judicial sanction to the well 
kiiown dictum of Proudhon, (though perhaps 
not exactly in the sense he intended) which 
has not hitherto been received in Courts of 
Law. 

La propriete c'est le vol. 

W. J. 



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